Photo: Met Opera/Karen Almond via National Catholic Register.
Ryan McKinny portrays inmate Joseph De Rocher and Joyce DiDonato portrays Sr. Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie’s opera Dead Man Walking.
My new friend Lynn S. is an opera lover. I met her when I was asked to interview someone for the newsletter at our current residence. She told me about attending a breathtaking Met opera broadcast in a local movie theater, Dead Man Walking. You may know the true story of the nun and the death row inmate.
As Javier C. Hernández reports for the New York Times, the opera generated an extra level of intensity when the Met took it to Sing Sing prison for a special performance.
“One by one, the inmates filed into a chapel at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y. — past a line of security officers, past a sign reading, ‘Open wide the door to Christ.’ Under stained-glass windows, they formed a circle, introducing themselves to a crowd of visitors as composers, rappers, painters and poets. Then they began to sing.
“The inmates had gathered one recent afternoon for a rehearsal of Dead Man Walking, the death-row tale that opened the Metropolitan Opera season [in September]. Together, they formed a 14-member chorus that would accompany a group of Met singers for a one-night-only performance of the work before an audience of about 150 of their fellow inmates.
Michael Shane Hale, 51, a chorus member serving a sentence of 50 years to life for murder, said that he often thought of himself as a monster.
“ ‘I feel like I’m at home,’ said a chorus member, Joseph Striplin, 47, who is serving a life sentence for murder, as the men warmed up with scales and stretches. ‘I feel I’m alive.’
“Dead Man Walking, based on Sister Helen Prejean’s 1993 memoir about her experience trying to save the soul of a convicted murderer at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, has been staged more than 75 times around the world since its premiere in 2000.
“But the opera, with music by Jake Heggie and a libretto by Terrence McNally, had never been performed in a prison until last week at Sing Sing, which is home to more than 1,400 inmates.
“There were no costumes or props. Chorus members, who were dressed in prison-issued green pants, had to be counted and screened before entering the auditorium, lining up by cell block and building number. …
“Yet the opera, with its themes of sin and redemption — and of the pain endured by victims’ families — resonated with inmates.
“Michael Shane Hale, 51, a chorus member serving a sentence of 50 years to life for murder, said that he often thought of himself as a monster. In the 1990s, prosecutors sought the death penalty in his case. (New York suspended the practice in 2004.) Hale said the opera, which portrays the friendship between Sister Helen and Joseph De Rocher, a death-row prisoner, had taught him to see his own humanity. …
“Not everyone at Sing Sing, a maximum-security prison about 30 miles north of New York City, was enamored. Some prisoners declined to take part in the opera because of concerns about its dark themes, including the portrayal of a prisoner’s death by lethal injection. …
“The idea for bringing Dead Man Walking to Sing Sing emerged several years ago when an inmate promised the renowned singer Joyce DiDonato, who plays Sister Helen in the Met’s production, that the men could sing the chorus parts. …
“Paul Cortez, 43, who is serving a sentence of 25 years to life for murder, worked with [Bryan Wagorn, a Met pianist] to learn the score and held Saturday night rehearsals with small groups of prisoners at Sing Sing. Some were initially hesitant, unsure if the opera advanced prisoners’ rights and fearing they ‘might be exploited,’ he said, but eventually more people started showing up.
“ ‘It was daunting at first,’ said Cortez, who majored in theater in college. ‘I did not know how I was going to get the guys in shape. But they were so diligent. They took it seriously.’
“[In September] DiDonato, joined by Sister Helen, 84, visited the prison to work through the music and to get to know the participants. They discussed life in prison, morality, shame and stigma, as well as Sister Helen’s efforts to abolish the death penalty. Some inmates, saying they were still consumed by guilt about their crimes, asked about seeking forgiveness.
“DiDonato and Sister Helen returned [two days] after opening night at the Met, joined by singers and staff from the Met and Carnegie Hall. … The Met singers introduced themselves, taking pains to remind the inmates that they were only pretending to be prison guards and police officers. (‘Clemency!’ a prisoner shouted, after the bass Raymond Aceto announced he was playing the role of a warden.)
“Sister Helen, standing among the inmates, said that there was love and trust in the room. ‘This is a sacred gathering,’ she added. ‘There is no place on earth at this time that I’d rather be. We’re going to create beauty today, and you’re going to feel it.’
“For more than five hours, the men worked with the Met artists, under the conductor Steven Osgood, practicing rhythm, diction and dynamics in three sections that feature the chorus.
“They stomped their feet and clapped their hands in ‘He Will Gather Us Around,’ a spiritual that opens the opera, which is typically performed by women and children. And they sang with fiery intensity as De Rocher confesses his murder, shortly before his execution. …
“Then, around 6:30 p.m., an audience of inmates and corrections officials took their seats in the auditorium, adjacent to the chapel.
“ ‘The most beautiful thing in the world is a human being that does something and is transformed,’ Sister Helen said in introducing the opera. ‘Everybody’s worth more than the worst thing they ever did.’ ”
More at the Times, here. And there is no paywall at the National Catholic Register, here, where there’s an interview with Sister Helen. Really interesting!
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 