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Ryan McKinny as Joseph De Rocher and Joyce DiDonato as Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking | Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera

2023 is certainly Jake Heggie’s year as his new opera, Intelligence, debut’s next month at Houston Grand Opera. But over in New York, the Metropolitan Opera’s season opening also brings us a new production of his opera from 2000, Dead Man Walking. It’s a fitting start to a season with a commitment to new opera (albeit still all operas composed by men) at the Met, looking with a contemporary eye at this true story of the death penalty, based on the memoir of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean.

Sister Helen’s voice is prioritised both in score and production - such as may be expected in the staging of a memoir, though not easy to do. The first scene bordered on Sound of Music as Sr Helen is surrounded by children, and teaches them a new hymn - 'He will gather us around' - imagine 'She'll be coming 'round the mountain when she comes'. But for all the fleeting elements of cringe, as it is her memoir, her voice and faith here that take centre stage in this new production by Ivo van Hove.

Sister Helen, played by illustrious mezzo Joyce DiDonato, is given the difficult job of embodying emotion within a minimal set. The story passes in Act 1 as if it is happening to her - director van Hove’s decision to make use of hazy projection and video brings us close to Sister Helen’s moments of dissociation and powerful perspective. Heggie writes in the programme notes that he wants us to make up our own minds about capital punishment, but with the protagonist so firmly routed in faith and the message of love so entirely triumphant, this doesn’t come across.

Joyce DiDonato as Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking | Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera

DiDonato is an actress with a voice that seems to appear with an effortless, yet purposeful presence. There are moments of transcendental solo voice where time appears to stop as DiDonato takes us into Sister Helen’s internal world. It is here that DiDonato reminds us of her tremendous artistry - her uniquely warm, pure sound making her the ideal Sister Helen.

Arriving at the prison to meet the prisoner on death row she has been writing to, Joseph De Rocher - played by bass-baritone Ryan McKinny - the scenes begin to feel slow. Through Terence McNally’s libretto we meet the bigoted prison chaplain, followed by the friendly and likeable warden. There is a short fight breaking out and Sister Helen remains physically at the centre of the drama. Prisoners are filmed close-up and foggily projected to the grey box hovering above the stage. 

McKinny himself enters, physically terrifying and intolerable. Dressed in a tank vest with blue tracksuit bottoms, his immediate reaction to Sister Helen is distressingly believable as he pushes her away. His baritone voice is full-bodied, but not self-indulgent. De Rocher’s thirst for life was masterfully captured by McKinny’s tenderness and strength of tone, which became especially upsetting to witness. It is this that leads Sister Helen to fight for him.

Of course there are the usual questions about the families of the deceased - those De Rocher murdered. Anger towards Sister Helen’s openness and empathy erupts and a quartet of the two families take charge. Singing from Krysty Swann, Wendy Bryn Harmer and Chauncey Packer was beautiful with Rod Gilfry delivering a stand-out performance as a traumatised father of the young girl De Rocher stabbed to death.

Heggie’s score is a blend of gospel, jazz with nods to gritty 20th century opera. It is absorbing, accessible in its reverence of melody and electrically fast-moving. Some moments even bring us close to Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites - the ending of which was firmly in my mind as Heggie set up the death scene. Masterfully led by the Met’s Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra drove the score with immense verve.

Jonah Mussolino as the Younger Brother, Joyce DiDonato as Sister Helen Prejean, and Susan Graham as Mrs. Patrick De Rocher in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking | Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera

Taking charge of emotion, alongside DiDonato, was Susan Graham as Mrs. Patrick De Rocher - the mother of Joseph. Almost exclusively accompanied by two suitably awkward young sons, her distress was incredibly absorbing. Not her first time in the role - and also the original Sister Helen in the 2000 production - Graham’s voice was aching, wise and strong as she commanded the stage. Denial and depression bled from her grieving body, placing her as the (potentially unlikely) centre of much of the opera’s emotion. The inability to give her son cookies she’d baked on his final day alive; the emotion seen as the younger son runs to hug Joseph as they say goodbye; and the unwavering devotion to her son were, for me, some of the most defining moments of the opera.

The stage and lighting, designed by Jan Versweyveld, centered us on the difference, and yet shared humanity of Sister Helen and Joseph De Rocher. Grey, stark walls, minimal props and a small room behind a door at the back remain throughout. Two-toned lighting, combined with their faces projected large onto the screen as the day of Joseph’s death approaches and Sister Helen starts having nightmares. It certainly focuses us on Sister Helen and the relationship which is forming, with the perspective shifts through filming, projection and lighting brilliantly mastered.

The final scene of Act 2 from Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking | Photo: Met Opera/Karen Almond

It was the death scene that lead me back to Heggie’s comment that we should ‘make up your own mind’ about the penalty. From the ashes of reassuring him to ‘look for me’, Sister Helen remains as close as possible as Joseph is surrounded by prisoners, officers and the deceased's families, strapped to the crucifixion-like medical bed and prepared to be put to death. Time slows down as paraphernalia takes center stage. My physical sickness as the needle went in may say more about me than the staging. The question of how much detail we really need to see to be affected by something is one that frequently appears in our graphic news-dominated media. According to Van Hove, we need to see everything.

Only when Sister Helen Prejan herself took to the stage during the bows and applause did the impact of the opera truly hit. All we had watched was once witnessed and recorded from the humble, beaming nun before us. Knowledge of that - of her true presence in the face of confusion, death and evil - gave the opera its ultimate meaning. 

Dead Man Walking is at the Metropolitan Opera, New York until 21 October | metopera.org