Soprano Joyce DiDonato and baritone Ryan McKinny play the main leads in the opera “Dead Man Walking,” which opens the New York Metropolitan Opera’s 2023-24 season (Angela Weiss)
Three decades ago, Sister Helen Prejean wrote “Dead Man Walking,” a book in which she describes her relationship with a capital convict whose execution she witnessed.
The 1993 memoirs became an Oscar-winning film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, as well as an opera about love, pain and redemption that, after twenty years on stage, opens the Metropolitan Opera season this Tuesday. New York (MET).
The operatic version of “Dead Man Walking” is composed by Jake Heggie, with a libretto by Terrence McNally. The MET production features mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, in the role of Sister Helen, and baritone Ryan McKinny, playing the death row inmate Joseph De Rocher.
In the supporting roles, soprano Latonia Moore plays Sister Rose, and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham – who played Prejean in 2000, when this opera premiered in San Francisco – is De Rocher’s mother.
Prejean, 84, has dedicated half his life to defending the abolition of capital punishment, legal in many states of the country.
After witnessing the death of Elmo Patrick Sonnier – who inspired the character of De Rocher – the nun accompanied several prisoners in their executions. She hopes that these experiences, captured in her book, will “wake people up.”
“I am very happy that the story and the reality reach people,” she told AFP during an intermission in the last dress rehearsal before Tuesday’s premiere.
“It is a secret ritual: only a few people have witnessed 1,500 executions,” he said, recalling an expression that struck him during his work in Latin America: “Eyes that do not see, heart that does not feel.”
“That’s why we need art to pull back the curtain and bring reality closer to people.”
– Can you forgive? –
This dark contemporary opera – directed by Ivo van Hove – begins with a scene depicting the murder and rape that sent De Rocher to death row.
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Afterwards, Sister Helen, who initiates correspondence with the prisoner, arranges to meet him at the Louisiana State Prison.
Throughout the performance, the two main characters are frequently on stage together, without the partitions or shackles that usually characterize the production, allowing the austere stage to become an emotional prison.
“It’s an opera about the death penalty, but in my opinion it’s about the human side, especially of someone who has done terrible things” and it’s worth “wondering if forgiveness is possible,” McKinny, who plays De, told AFP. Rocher.
For Prejeajn, it’s also about helping people understand the circumstances that led a person to do what they did, so it’s important to ask “what did we do wrong?”
– In search of a young audience –
The production of “Dead Man Walking” is part of a change of direction by the 143-year-old Met as it seeks to attract a younger audience.
In recent years, the company has had success with operas by living composers, such as “The Hours” and “Fire Shut Up In My Bones,” which also return to the theater this season.
The prestigious opera also stages “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.”
For soprano Moore, the Met’s turn toward the contemporary demonstrates support for “American opera composers, and American artists here.”
“Of course we love the classics, but if we don’t do something to move forward and we don’t incorporate our own culture into this art form, this art will die in this country,” because it’s about broadening the appeal of opera to a wider audience. young person with whom “they can identify” and “reach them emotionally,” he concluded.
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2023-09-26 12:26:20
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