We round up the reviews for the first UK staging of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s adaptation of the memoir by Sister Helen Prejean.
The Guardian: ***** “Christine Rice, singing with unforced refinement, brings huge emotional reserves and a natural physicality to Sister Helen, complementing a wry gawkiness with commanding stillness. As De Rocher, Michael Mayes, in remarkably his 13th production of the opera, sings with power and pathos while see-sawing between rage and despair.”
The Standard: **** “No such problem with Christine Rice. While her physical presence embodies Sister Helen’s struggles with her faith, her voice expresses her determination to hold true to her beliefs, despite Joseph’s grisly death. It may have taken 25 years for London to see the opera properly staged, but it was worth the wait.”
The Telegraph: ***** “Dead Man Walking, Jake Heggie’s opera about death row, packs an enormous emotional punch.”
Bachtrack: ***** “overall, this is what contemporary opera should be: using the power of music to explore important themes of today in a way that cannot fail to leave you unmoved.”
London Unattached: **** 1/2 “It was, in the end, an evening that reaffirmed the opera’s extraordinary reach. Heggie and McNally’s story may be rooted in the specifics of the American South, but its questions about justice, mercy and what it means to forgive feel uncomfortably close to home.”
The iPaper: **** “Contemporary popular opera: it sounds like a contradiction in terms, but Dead Man Walking squares the circle. Songful and direct, serving up moral ambiguity with musical conviction, it’s music-theatre in the purest sense. If you want West End bang for much less than West End buck this autumn, this show is the answer.”
Broadway World: ***** “It is director, Annilese Miskimmon’s, singular achievement to hold the rising tide of sentimentality at bay – if tears come, for whom are they shed? – while allowing conductor, Kerem Hasan’s music to illuminate the light and dark of the human soul.”
To book tickets visit: https://www.eno.org/events/dead-man-walking/