The week in classical: Dead Man Walking; Das Rheingold – review

Teatro Real, Madrid; Royal Festival Hall, London
Joyce DiDonato is superb as Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s 2000 opera, soon to have its UK premiere

One question elbows aside all others in Dead Man Walking, Jake Heggie’s debut opera, first seen in San Francisco in 2000 and staged many times since. How do we deal with forgiveness? Last week the work received its Spanish premiere with a cast starring Joyce DiDonato as the Roman Catholic nun Sister Helen Prejean, on whose 1993 memoir it is based. DiDonato, many of the same singers, and conductor Mark Wigglesworth, will give the UK premiere in a semi-staging in London later this month.

This full-length ensemble piece in two acts is set in Louisiana state penitentiary, the largest maximum security prison in the United States. Sister Helen – who is now 78 and was present at opening night at Madrid’s Teatro Real – befriends Joseph De Rocher, a killer on death row with a date fixed for his own legal murder. The nun’s task, self-imposed, is to persuade him to admit his guilt and ask forgiveness. Dead Man Walking, to a libretto by Terrence McNally, presents the story without taking sides.

The Madrid production, originally from Lyric Opera of Chicago and directed by Leonard Foglia, creates the sinister walkways and meshed-wire prison backdrop all too vividly. Sister Helen, superbly portrayed in all her strength and vulnerability by DiDonato, fights not for De Rocher’s life but for his soul. He is unyielding. The moment when he taunts his confessor-nun about the limits of her own intimate life – “have you ever been with a man?” – is ugly, unsparing. The entire experience takes its toll on Sister Jean, as much as the families involved, challenging her faith, her stamina, her vocation.

In the US, the number of executions has fallen; public opinion, if recent polls are accurate, is shifting away from the death penalty. Yet it is still practised in 31 states, with President Trump a vocal proponent. In Europe only one country (Belarus) still actively carries out executions. Data of this sort doesn’t ordinarily have a place in an opera review, but Dead Man Walking is no ordinary opera. The human drama transforms us, whether from a European or an American perspective, whether audience or performer.

For Michael Mayes, who plays De Rocher, the opera has been life-changing. Until now he has sung only in regional US houses. Now he is singing with Joyce DiDonato in a major European theatre (apparently he had to apply for a passport for the trip). Perhaps more important still, the violence and prejudice simmering in the work is a mindset Mayes recognises first-hand. This East Texan, who spent his childhood in a mobile home in the small town of Cut and Shoot, has said of the man he plays: ”I grew up with that guy. He was in my family, he was in my school, I was surrounded by him.” His performance, little wonder, glinted with fierceness and edgy sadness. At the curtain call, his emotion was visible.

The fluent music, with its bluesy, melodic, Broadway-ish feel and echoes of Copland, Bernstein and Carlisle Floyd, steers us but is not in itself hugely memorable – despite Wigglesworth’s impassioned direction and bold playing from the Teatro Real orchestra. Even listening to DiDonato’s 2012 recording with Houston Grand Opera, it is the human drama that hooks us in. (Her latest album, Great Scott, also by Heggie and McNally, indicates her loyalty to their work.) Heggie writes generously, if traditionally, for the voice. Pouring her heart out at top volume, DiDonato sounded as if she could have gone on effortlessly for a good few hours more.

Choruses of innocent children and prisoners, a climactic company finale in Act 1, a skilful ensemble for the parents of the murder victims, a lyrical solo for the murderer’s broken mother (Maria Zifchak), combined effectively in this not-quite-a-musical score. The orchestra and chorus of the Teatro Real gave their all. The BBC Symphony Orchestra, with Wigglesworth, play the UK premiere on 20 February as part of the Barbican’s Art of Change series, an exploration of how art can “effect change in the social and political landscape”. Surely this one does.

Transformations of an entirely musical kind happen in Wagner’s Das Rheingold, taking us from scene to scene, turning Nibelung dwarf into giant snake. Even if you ignore the story, the music consumes you whole. Vladimir Jurowski marked his 10th anniversary with the London Philharmonic Orchestra – one of the glorious partnerships of UK musical life – with the opening opera of a complete Ring cycle between now and 2021 in their home, the Royal Festival Hall.

It was semi-semi-staged: singers walked on and off the choir area behind the orchestra, and minimal lighting turned the organ pipes into a quasi-Valhalla. I found it adequate, so compelling was the performance. Robert Hayward, snarling and swindling as the devious Alberich, Adrian Thompson’s pugnaciously horrible Mime, the silken-voiced Rheinmaidens (Sofia Fomina, Rowan Hellier, Lucie Špičková), the giants Fasolt (Matthew Rose, truculent and tender) and Fafner (Brindley Sherratt, a terse, murderous bruiser) led an impressive cast.

As Wotan, Matthias Goerne, alone in singing from the score – I thought there must be a reason, since he’s sung it before (and enquired but no answer came) – was velvety and sonorous but uncomfortably detached. I tried hard to be convinced. In the end he was all too like a failing politician clinging to his Autocue than a chief god set on world dominion. The terrific LPO and Jurowski, proven Wagnerians all, stole the show.

Star ratings (out of 4)
Dead Man Walking ★★★★
Das Rheinghold ★★★★

Dead Man Walking is at the Teatro Real, Madrid, until 9 February; and at the Barbican, London, on 20 February

Contributor

Fiona Maddocks

The GuardianTramp

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