The Met's Dead Man Walking

The first thing scene we see in Dead Man Walking is a rape and murder. Through video projected on an IMAX-worthy scrim, it is direct and visceral. The act itself is obviously disdainful, predatory, senseless. This gross randomness, in towering proportion, defiles the stage. Countless other operas plunder rape and murder for plot, but it’s rare to see the acts so realistically without the “rationalization” of war, revenge, or honor. It feels pointedly sacrilegious, and when this sets the tone, anything could happen next. But of that “anything”—who would possibly expect to hear hymn-singing children? The juxtaposition is chilling and dramatic.

Joyce DiDonato continues to prove that she is one of the most powerful operatic performers today, holding us captive through her vocal prowess and true characterization. As Sister Helen Prejean, she can command the stage whether it is empty or full. An unaccompanied solo rendition of “He Will Gather Us Around”—a tune original to composer Jake Heggie, but so convincing I thought it to be historical—left me breathless. She retains exquisite control whether surrounded by children (Young People’s Chorus of New York City, rehearsed to perfection), full of motherly joy, or playing the nuance of terrified staunchness, surrounded by death-row inmates.

There were a few times where I questioned the veracity of her top notes (the role may sit higher in her range than others), but DiDonato’s ability to pull pitch from nothing, hold it in place longer than you think possible, and swell into a gentle vibrato is unmatched. Her characterization was pleasant and winning; however, I would prefer she lean more into the feisty, firebrand nature of Sister Prejean; it is mentioned explicitly in the libretto and should be clear.

Ryan McKinny as Joseph de Rocher—built physique, fake tattoos, clap push-ups onstage (perhaps a first for the Met?) pulls off menacing inmate, but I’m not sure if his performance ever brought my sympathy. Usually that would be fine—some characters are meant to be static, stock, and evil, but sympathy is the crux of the work. As the opera plays out, for whom do we feel sorry, guilt, or anger changes often. De Rocher’s family is losing a son, but he has ripped two children from their own families. He clearly suffers from the trauma of his act. What is the validity of his final confession? Dramatically, why is it so important to admit his guilt, and does that change whether or not the audience feels sorry for him?

Ivo van Hove, as usual, keeps the stage quite bare. Vehicles or furniture are represented by skinny-legged benches. A similarly thin conference table. More befitting a press conference, becomes a courtroom. He features a combination of video throughout the performance, both pre-recorded and live, projected onto the set’s walls and on a gray box stage center that hovers ominously in the air. 

Camera operators in black circle the stage, often to provide a closer glance of emoting faces. The characters in the pre-recorded film (blessedly blurry) were clearly not the same set of actors. This is less distracting than pictures of signs that appear from nowhere in the frame—so cartoonish that one might expect the furry arm of Wile E. Coyote to be holding them up. They are mentioned in the libretto and should appear whooshing by the roadside; here the sings are obligatory but artless.

The biggest set piece, literally and figuratively, is de Rocher’s execution. As the machinery of death rolls on stage and de Rocher is strapped down, we’re forced to watch the entire tableaux simultaneously in two ways, both from afar and witnessing the grim action up close via live feed. The gray block above stage evidently hides a camera that forces us to watch de Rocher’s face after he is secured supine to the table. The reveal is effective yet understand..

You can feel the Met audience’s collective shudder with the needle’s insertion—a clever bit of stagecraft that truly looked to involve an actual needle. But when the pump is released and a green liquid flows down the IV, it clearly stops before entering de Rocher’s arm (the camera operator’s tasteful pan should hav started sooner). At the dramatic peak, we’re left to watch McKinny’s face contort one the overhead video, but the rest of the stage is inert and anticlimactic.

Denouement is difficult—it’s hard to come down from what we’ve dreaded is coming all around. The audience knows he never stood a chance. (The results of de Rocher’s pardon appeal, which could have been a larger plot point, were quickly dismissed with a throwaway line at the beginning of the execution scene.) De Rocher’s death is the required catharsis, but it doesn’t feel good. Sister Helen hopes, sincerely if morosely, that the couples received the ending they required. One pair—the most vocal in their disdain for de Rocher—is divorcing. What difference does his death make? It can’t bring their daughter back.

De Rocher’s final absolution is trivial and undramatic compared to his death. As someone without a religious practice, I found Sister Helen’s insistence on confession a plot device that centers herself, since there’s no evidence in the libretto of de Rocher’s own faith. He doesn’t care whether he’s forgiven or not for most of the opera, then inexplicably caves. Sister Helen’s own crisis of faith is more solidly centered, and there’s little summation of this plot beyond the confession she finally provokes.

Personally, I came to the piece believing the death penalty is abhorrent; should a reckoning of personal belief be intended, I am not the audience. If the opera is made to sway towards a society without capital punishment—a milestone on the way to full abolition of the carceral state—sharing mores stories of its collateral victims while honoring those the state murders may be more successful.