Look/Listen

Composer Jake Heggie. © Ellen Appel

About fifteen years ago, when my daughters were in elementary school, I was just learning about technology and computers. Around this time, I had just returned home from meeting with some of my own music students. I paused to pick up messages from our answering machine, and I was totally unprepared for what followed.

A recorded voice on the machine identified the caller as a detective from a town in southern Missouri. Although polite, the detective announced, glibly and without emotion, that he would like to discuss with me the homicide of my aunt and uncle. This was how I learned that they had been killed, apparently the victims of a robbery attempt at their rural home. Had my children returned home before me, they would easily have retrieved the phone message before I did.

Thinking back over the deaths that have take place within my own sphere, most of natural occurrence, but a few, well, not so natural, I realize that homicide—murder, to use a plainer term—can cut across all economic and social divisions. Never had I dreamt that members of my own family would fall victim—but then, who does entertain such thoughts during their waking hours?

Already this summer, the dark demon of homicide—specifically, in one of its most brutal forms, terrorism—has been musically charted and brought to life in St. Louis through Opera Theatre of St. Louis' production of John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer. Now Union Avenue Opera Theatre, under the leadership of its founder and director, Scott Schoonover, will pilot a course through the same murky waters with its staging of Jake Heggie's 2000 opera, Dead Man Walking, opening on August 19.

Whereas The Death of Klinghoffer deals with the horrific act of murder itself, Dead Man Walking, while not side-stepping savage violence and its aftermath, focuses on the spiritual crisis that erupts once a crime has been committed:  the matter of punishment and retribution.

Tim Robbins, the director of the film version of Dead Man Walking, was admittedly an opponent of the death penalty, but he did not try to gloss over or diminish the horrors of the crimes that had been committed. Nor does Jake Heggie in his operatic treatment of the libretto that was freely offered by playwright Terrence McNally. In all versions of the story, parents of murder victims stonily command us to understand that we cannot grasp their anguish if we have not lived their nightmare. Sister Helen Prejean, who wrote the book about her work with death row inmates on which both the movie and opera are based, has faced criticism for perhaps concentrating more on perpetrators than on victims, but, to her credit, she has established an organization, Survive, which seeks to minister to the families of murder victims.

But how can music, through opera, add deeper insight and illumination to the debate over capital punishment? First of all, music gives all of us the means of expressing our deepest emotions and spirituality. That's why we sing—or strum guitars, or compose, or install massive organs in cathedrals or chant mantras as an adjunct to meditation. In Dead Man Walking, you can hear the influence of black spirituals and gospel music, which were forged from the American experience. For many, music was a connection to a world where questions would be answered and wrongs laid to rest. Although Heggie normally composes in a florid, ambulatory style, rooted in tonalism yet branching into modernism, he understood that the direct, incisive and to-the-point gospel style could frame the debate about capital punishment as words alone never could. More than a century ago, Antonin Dvorak found himself moved to tears on many occasions when he heard spirituals, and he crafted one of his own in his New World Symphony. Today Jake Heggie and other composers still embrace that tradition. And opera has never shied from tragedy and death, of course; we all know that. Music gives life to the musings of our souls. If we listen to, say, Brunnhilde's Immolation Scene, or Isolde's "Liebestod", or the climax of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony, it can even be said that music, at least in some small way, transcends death, if only for a moment.

Although little more than a decade old, Dead Man Walking has already received several productions, both in the United States and abroad. It was Heggie's first opera, and Terrence McNally's first libretto, and the freshness of their creativity will be readily apparent to the audience. In keeping with the subject and setting of the opera, the libretto includes strong language, and the action onstage is often graphic. Cast members in previous productions have included stars such as Frederica von Stade and Susan Graham. In Union Avenue Opera's production, Elise Quagliata will make her debut with the opera company as Sister Helen Prejean, and Jordan Shanahan will sing the role of condemned inmate Joseph De Rocher. Tim Ocel directs the production, and Scott Schoonover conducts. Sister Helen Prejean herself will be in town for the opening on August 19.

In my own case, as details emerged in the deaths of my aunt and uncle, it was learned that they were targeted after placing an ad to sell an automobile. The police acted swiftly, and a suspect was arrested, tried and sentenced to death. However, doubts later arose, and a retrial took place in which the suspect was again convicted, but the death penalty was rescinded, and the convicted man has the option of future appeals. Today, I am not at all sure that the man serving behind bars is indeed the culprit.

It is not my purpose here to pass judgment on the death penalty, or to argue about its effectiveness as a deterrent. Rather, my goal is simply to show the power of music to interact with all aspects of our lives and beliefs. Dead Man Walking will emerge as a great work of art if it forces us to think clearly and rationally, but not if it merely preaches. Greatness in art doesn't derive from forcing us to be swayed in one direction or another, but from forcing us to reflect. The victims of evil who have been championed and immortalized in music deserve nothing less.

Gary Scott blogs about music, education and life in general at scottmind.blogspot.com.