'DEAD MAN'  SLEEP-WALKING---THEN REVIVING
                                              By Paul Hertelendy
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music
                                                                 Week of Oct. 9-16, 2000
                                                                  Vol. 3, No. 13
        The new "Dead Man Walking" entails  more sleep-walking than walking through the first half, but it enkindles enough drama in the second for a resounding finish.
        Operas about perdition, depravity or hell are inevitably more popular than those about salvation.
        And that's the big challenge for "Dead Man Walking," a tale about a nun saving the soul (but not the body) of a Death Row prisoner.
        No clinches, no love duets, no elaborate subplots, no would-be poisonings, no lost letters, no palace intrigues, no magic tricks. Just a condemned man seething with rage and a hand-wringing nun voicing deep-felt Christian platitudes.
        But it got buzz right away. The company sold an unprecedented 1,000 tickets for it the Monday after the opening. And, in case you had any more reservations about the power of the Web, nearly half of these were over the Web at the SFO's address (see "on-line" below).
        A composer of song cycles for divas, Jake Heggie, 39, seemed like a sheep thrown to the wolves when his first opera project was announced. He had rarely dealt in anger, conflict or passion, nor even in orchestral projection. He was like the Red Cross sent to the war's front lines unarmed.
        As first operas go, "Dead Man Walking" is respectable enough--no smash hit (as suggested by the San Francisco Chronicle and The Guardian), but certainly no flop (as suggested by the New York Times and the Washington Post). The third of the world premieres during lame-duck General Director Lotfi Mansouri's highly creative 11-year reign (with a fourth by Bobby McFerrin still technically pending), it contrasts markedly with the courtly decadence of Conrad Susa's "Dangerous Liaisons" and the overt sexuality of Andre' Previn's "Streetcar Named Desire" preceding it.
`        "Dead Man" is ballasted by Terrence McNally's down-to-earth, monosyllabic libretto, requiring poetry more eloquent than the plodding pace of "Poverty, ignorance and violent crime are not strangers to the projects where we sisters work." As long as Heggie and McNally had decided not to adhere closely to Sister Helen Prejean's book or movie, subplot development was clearly called for, going well beyond the confrontation between the nun (Sister Prejean) and the irate parents of the teenaged murder victims. The pre-intermission action lacks all momentum, and both curtain scenes fall flat.
        Heggie has a lyrical gift. His music is consonant, with a serenity reminiscent of Poulenc's "The Dialogues of the Carmelites" or Sam Barber's "Vanessa." Heggie's difficulties---certainly not insurmountable in future efforts---are his breaking off duets and ensembles after the first line or two, and his limited flair for high drama, particularly in orchestration. If the two principals can never touch each other during the prison visits, sustained duets would have been a perfect compensatory linkage. He uses some judicious musical quotes here and there, and he adroitly blends characters' themes when they interact.
        The most curious feature is the extended silence at the end as the prisoner is dying from his lethal injection (in contrast to the real-life Pat Sunier in Prejean's book, who died in the electric chair). A brief coda, also without orchestra, has the nun reprising a spiritual a cappella.
        But Heggie has progressed leaps and bounds beyond his song cycles, and somewhere within him there is a bona-fide opera composer. Even with the second cast heard Oct. 10, there were sparks during the growing complex relationship between the nun and the prisoner Joe de Rocher and his final tormented decision to bare all and confess his guilt.
        Much of this opera really works. There's a midnight duet, too short, between Sister Rose and Prejean that firms the latter's resolve, with some of the night's best orchestral interplay. On Joe's last night on earth, the Confession Scene and the climactic March to Judgment scene (cadentially reminiscent of its counterpart in the Poulenc opera) are moving  statements. And Heggie effectively employs a contrapuntal chorus of "Dead Man Walking" to back soliloquies and prayers.
        Heggie's style is securely tonal, with little dissonance---not enough perhaps to inspire the aficionados looking for grand gestures and themes, but not enough to offend the traditionalist's ear, either. He uses a few quotations, and also brings in effective contrasts, via the pre-recorded pop music blaring on the radio in the wrenching opening murder scene (in which the two young naked lovers are dispatched), or via the jazzy sounds to accompany the nun's and Joe's recollections of the Elvis era.
        This critic differs with colleagues reviewing the Oct. 7 opening who found "Dead Man" too neutral on the subject of capital punishment. A moving performance, as created Oct. 10 by mezzo Kristine Jepson (Prejean) and baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes (Joe), comes down emphatically in the "anti" column, with Joe killed off by society amidst Christ-like symbols.
        The large cast with well-projected voices features mezzo Frederica von Stade as Joe's mother, bass David Okerlund in multiple scene-stealing roles, baritone Robert Orth (familiar from his "Harvey Milk" title role here in 1996) and soprano Theresa Hamm-Smith.
        Patrick Summers conducted with sensitivity.
        The production assembled under Joe Mantello had very stark sets by Michael Yeargan, as inspired by the recurrent three-story cell block. Mantello's direction was effective, given the essential dramatic constraint provided by the Death Row confinement.
        "Dead Man" is an often riveting encounter of beauty and beast with a tragic ending, introducing a San Francisco composer who will be heard from again---first in Opera Pacific's reprise of this one in 2001-02, and then in a commission of Opera No. 2 by the Houston Grand Opera. The buzz on it is already running rampant, with this week's single-ticket sales virtually selling out Oct. 10 and totally selling out Oct. 13.
        ©Paul Hertelendy 2000
        Jake Heggie's "Dead Man Walking," a new opera premiered Oct. 7 with mezzo Susan Graham and John Packard, eight performances through Oct. 28. Two acts, one intermission, nearly three hours. San Francisco Opera. Info: 415-864-3330 or on-line.
                                            #
        Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into recordings by local artists, books (by authors of the region) and theater as well.
                      #
     Return to main menu.