So I finally managed to see this, on a Spanish streaming site. I was sorry the Met production was a COVID casualty, but this is a high-class production itself--from the Teatro Real--so I don't think this was any kind of downgrade from that, aside from the presence of burnt-in Spanish subtitles. As is almost always the case with English-language operas, there's still some dialogue that's hard to make out. Such is life.
This of course is based on the nonfiction book by Sister Helen Prejean about her experiences working with and counseling prisoners on death row. I've never read it, but I did see the movie back in the day. I was surprised to realize that both the movie and opera are lightly fictionalized versions of true events: in both cases, the inmate character is an amalgamation of two different people that Prejean worked with. He even has a different name between them, but I think it's basically the same person. In the opera, his name is Joseph DeRocher, and he's being executed for murdering two teenagers who were making out by a lake. We see his bids for clemency being denied, we meet both his family and the parents of his victims, and of course his relationship with Prejean. At first he angrily denies culpability at all, but in the end he breaks down and acknowledges his guilt. And then, the state puts poison in him. And that is that.
I must say.........this was harder to watch than any opera I've seen. In a good--but emotionally draining--way. With most operas, no matter how tragic they may be, there's a level of artifice that blunts the force somewhat, but here, man, we're talking about an issue that is still very, very alive and well. "Well." None of this is to say that it works so well because Heggie is a better composer than any other (although he is very good), but he--and Terrence McNally, the librettist, who suggested the idea for the opera in the first place--chose a very potent subject. And Heggie's varied, tonal music works very well with the drama.
This performance features Joyce DiDonato as Sister Helen (see, I told you it was high class). She's great of course, but I've gotta say: Michael Mayes as Joseph I think is even better; a really tremendous performance from someone who apparently isn't famous enough to warrant a wikipedia page (or I may just be saying that because he gets the most overtly dramatic and emotional moments). And you can tell he was feeling it: during the curtain call, he looks emotionally overcome in a way I don't think I've ever seen before. It is truly moving when he and DiDonato embrace.
The thing about America today is, there are so many things that are worthy of outrage that it's very hard to focus on any one of them. I don't think that's a conscious strategy on anyone's part, but it might as well be. Still. Capital punishment remains one of our worst things (frankly, I feel a little self-conscious about this opera being performed in countries that, for all the problems they do have, don't have this one). I listened to an interview where Heggie claimed that the story isn't demanding that you feel a certain way, but...come on. The piece does not downplay the savagery of DeRocher's crime, nor the pain of his victim's families, so in that sense it's fair--but Prejean and her book are very, very overtly anti-death-penalty--it's the main thing she tweets about, and OF COURSE she has a twitter account. And if his breakdown at the end does not move you to question your pro-cp attitude, then, well, the drama clearly has not worked for you.
The one criticism you could level against it is to say, okay, but he repents in the end. A lot of executed prisoners don't do that, so if you're only concerned with people who are ultimately sympathetic, you're not really anti-death-penalty, are you? That's a real argument; you can't just dismiss it. What I'd say is that the argument is not that all condemned prisoners are actually nice people, but rather that they're human, with all the messiness that entails. They are not solely defined by their crimes, and blank, institutional violence is not an appropriate response. A story like this one forces you to confront that in a way that you wouldn't otherwise. And really, if your argument is we've GOTTA kill 'em all; otherwise, we might accidentally let a bad person live, I just don't know what to say to you.
But that's neither here nor there...well, okay, it's both here and there all the time. But still: this is a truly powerful opera, and I hope that in the future society changes in such a way as to attenuate some of that power.
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