Tonight's world premiere of Jake Heggie's "Dead Man Walking" in
the War Memorial Opera House was more than an enormous hit, as the
celebrity-studded, security-guarded audience gave it a huge ovation.

The event also marked the introduction of a truly important new composer
on the scene of contemporary American opera.  At 39 (and looking half of
that, somewhat incongruously), with his first opera - in fact, a pianist's
first large-scale orchestrated work, a songwriter's first excursion into
other genre - Heggie seems to have arrived fully formed as a natural,
wonderfully talented, audience-pleasing and yet uncompromisingly serious
opera composer.

Everything is done right with this final big project created and managed
by the company's retiring general manager, Lotfi Mansouri.  Terrence
McNally wrote a brilliantly sparse libretto from Helen Prejean's book; Joe
Mantello's production, with Michael Yeargan's grand sets, seems seamless
and doesn't call attention to itself; Patrick Summers conducted one of the
finest performances of his long and illustrious career here - and none of
that would matter a fig if the work itself failed or even faltered.  It
doesn't.  It's all of one piece, a song sustained over a whole evening.

Besides the work itself, there was one other grand, unforgettable thing
about tonight:  Susan Graham, as Sister Helen, pouring forth a strong,
luscious voice, with impeccable diction and consistent impact, almost
continuously for two and a half hours, in a performance that would have
been stunning even if the music didn't succeed.  Given the combination of
Graham's performance and wonderful music, it was truly a "grand night for
singing" - an interesting concept in contemporary opera.

Heggie's music is difficult to describe beyond cliches of "melodic,
neo-romantic." etc., but - at the risk of repetition - it is true to
its origin, "song-like," with the vocal line constantly up front and
soaring, against a complex and yet transparent orchestral background.
The inevitable "like" you can't help mentioning in case of a new composer
would bring up Richard Strauss and Debussy in texture, Britten and Sondheim
in melodic structure (especially the latter's "Passion"), and just a hint
of latter-day Minimalists, such as Adams.

The work is structured cinematically, with the actual double murder
opening the scene, and - Hitchcock-like - revealing the facts the opera's
protagonists are trying to find.  In McNally's writing, there is
sophisticated complexity in presenting the many aspects of what a lesser
work would show as a single "truth." The execution concluding the work
makes for bold and effective theater, rather than advocacy or outright
propaganda.  (All that security, by the way, was for naught:  there were
but a few well-behaved demonstrators outside the Opera House, passing out
leaflets either for or against capital punishment.)

Besides Graham's marvelous performance (in addition to all the vocal
splendor, she was also funny, appealing, affecting, not a false move all
night long), the huge cast put on one of the company's most consistently
excellent performances in a long time.  John Packard was a vocally and
physically (no singer has ever done so many pushups!) impressive Joseph de
Rocher (the "dead man"); Frederica von Stade was virtually unrecognizable
as his frumpy mother - until she opened her mouth, that is; Theresa
Hamm-Smith made an auspicious San Francisco debut as Sister Rose; Nicolle
Foland and Gary Rideout excelled as the murder girl's mother and boy's
father, respectively.  Ian Robertson's chorus just blew the house away
in climactic scenes - although the silent minutes of the execution and
Graham's unaccompanied song that followed spoke louder still.

Good news:  the performance was filmed, and it will be broadcast.
Meanwhile, it looks like a virtual certainty that "Dead Man Walking"
will soon make the rounds in the U.S.  and Europe.

Janos Gereben/SF, CA
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