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When contemporary opera struggles to find its own stories to tell, it plunders promiscuously from other genres — films, theatre, TV, novels. In the process, it runs the risk of becoming a mere footnote to its sources but that’s not the case with Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking.
It draws on a 1993 memoir by Sister Helen Prejean, recounting her experiences visiting prisoners on Death Row. A feature film followed in 1995, then came Heggie’s version, his first opera, premiered in San Francisco in 2000 and now the most performed of all 21st-century operas. Annilese Miskimmon’s new production for English National Opera is its first full staging in London.
Terrence McNally’s text is sometimes too wordy — a few cuts might not have gone amiss — but he and Heggie build a focussed portrait of Sister Helen and Joseph De Rocher, who’s been condemned to death for murdering a young couple. Composer and librettist clearly share Sister Helen’s opposition to capital punishment, but they don’t make a sermon out of it.
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We’re in Louisiana in the 1980s. As Joseph’s execution approaches, Sister Helen visits the prison and tries to persuade him to ask for God’s forgiveness. He steadfastly maintains his innocence, while she grapples to reconcile her faith with his inevitable, and graphically portrayed, death by injection. Throughout, touches of humour balance the emotional tension, notably when nun and convict bond over their shared enthusiasm for Elvis Presley.
From the undulating, surging overture onwards, Heggie demonstrates a confident control of dramatic momentum. He places Southern gospel alongside conventional hymnody and lushly orchestrated passages that wouldn't be out of place in a 1950s Hollywood melodrama. Everything coheres, thanks not least to conductor Kerem Hasan’s well-paced reading.
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The opera demands a large cast: 22 solo roles plus a large chorus, including many children (even though ENO’s age advisory suggests that the opera is only suitable for those over the age of 18). Miskimmon handles the crowded stage well, helped by Alex Eales’s single set, which easily switches from convent to jailhouse to courtroom and beyond.
Among the host of supporting roles, Sarah Connolly stands out, bringing both dignity and bolshiness to the part of Joseph’s mother. Inevitably, it’s the two central figures who dominate. Baritone Michael Mayes has played the opera’s condemned man many times and fully captures his self-righteousness and barely controlled rage, sometimes at the expense of bel canto.
No such problem with Christine Rice. While her physical presence embodies Sister Helen’s struggles with her faith, her voice expresses her determination to hold true to her beliefs, despite Joseph’s grisly death. It may have taken 25 years for London to see the opera properly staged, but it was worth the wait.
Dead Man Walking at London Coliseum, until November 18; eno.org
