Sarah Connolly, Malachy Frame, Michael Mayes, Alaric Green, ENO’s Dead Man Walking 2025 © Manuel Harlan
ENO / Kerem Hasan
The Coliseum, London, November 1, 2025
I was not prepared for the sheer weight of anger portrayed on stage in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, receiving its first fully staged production in the UK. The furious denial of the convict – Joe De Rocher – over his rape and murder of two high-school teenagers (set out graphically in dumb show in the Prologue), the incensed despair of the victims’ parents, the cold fury of the State moving ineluctably towards execution.
Set mostly on Death Row in the real-life State Penitentiary of Angola, Louisiana, this was never going to be an easy watch but the intensity of the performances in this first full-stage production in the UK was breath-taking from the first notes of the Prelude to the unaccompanied solo rendition of Heggie’s own hymn, He will gather us around at the close.
Based on the “non-fiction novel” by Sister Helen Prejean, who acted as spiritual advisor to two Death Row inmates in the 1980s and became a leading opponent of capital punishment in consequence, Sister Helen is the focal point of the opera. She is superbly characterised by mezzo Christine Rice – worlds away from Auntie in Peter Grimes, which she sang for ENO just two years ago – truly embodying the physical fragility of the doubt-filled nun in over her head with every nervy, tremulous gesture. Rice also catches the ambivalence of Helen: what really are her motives, religious, compassionate, political?
Rice is not dogmatic in her portrayal any more than Heggie and librettist Terrence McNally are: indeed, the opera’s most compelling aspect is its refusal to preach or take sides; many questions are asked, about right and wrong, crime and retribution, faith and belief, but the answers are for each individual in the audience to decide for themselves.
Directed with extraordinary sureness of touch by ENO artistic director Annelise Miskimmon, a crucial feature of this production is the consistently high level of acting throughout the cast; indeed, I do not think I have seen any opera so well acted in all departments. Most prominent, of course, is baritone Michael Mayes as De Rocher, in his 13th production in this role (having first sung it in 2018), his vocal sureness matched by an even greater physicality of presence, from brutish hostility to tremulous ticks and trembling as the chained convict. He is the epicentre of the stage action however much the storyline remained Sister Helen’s emotional journey until his final cathartic confession.
Of the supporting cast, baritone Jacques Imbrailo is powerfully convincing as the raging, grieving, powerless Owen Hart, father of the murdered girl. So powerful, that his eruptive intervention in the parole scene almost rendered the depiction of the actual crime in the prologue irrelevant. At the other extreme, mezzo Dame Sarah Connolly dominates the stage with her piteous portrayal of the guilt-ridden mother of De Rocher. In a cast with no weak links, the other stand out role is that of Sister Rose, sung by Harewood Artist soprano Madeline Boreham, who clearly has a lustrous career ahead of her.
In over her head: Christine Rice, ENO’s Dead Man Walking 2025 © Manuel Harlan
There were one or two occasions on first night when the power of Heggie’s sometimes Brittenish orchestration in Act One threatened to overwhelm some of the singers, even Sister Helen, but these were rare. Kerem Hasan keeps a tight grip on the score, played with ferocious virtuosity by the ENO Orchestra in an account that makes the live Houston Grand Opera live recording (Erato, available on YouTube) sound pallid by comparison. The augmented ENO Chorus distinguish themselves in their various roles as prisoners, guards, and parents of the convent school children in the early scenes (sung by the Finchley Children’s Music Group), combining to close Act One in Sister Helen’s overwhelmingly fevered, nightmarish vision.
Alex Eales’s set is disarmingly effective, a single structure serving as convent school, prison, parole board office, and execution viewing room with largely minimal refinements, complemented by D M Wood’s sensitive and evocative lighting. Evie Gurney’s costumes are consistently en pointe.
Dead Man Walking was, astonishingly, Heggie’s first opera, and galvanised his career to place him at the forefront of contemporary composition. It is claimed to be the 21st century’s most performed opera – technically it isn’t, having been written in 1998-9 although premiered in San Francisco in 2000 – but with well over 80 productions staged right around the globe since its creation, it is arguably the most popular post-Millennium modern opera. It joins a select group of recent stage works that pull no punches in depicting and confronting humanity’s violent, darker side, such as Weinberg’s The Passenger (ENO, 2011) and Saariaho’s Innocence (Royal Opera, 2023).
The treatment of the subject matter is compellingly visceral, brutal even, light years away from standard operatic fare, even tragedies such as Tosca and Carmen. Can it be called entertainment? Some in the gripped, enthusiastically appreciative audience might baulk at that question. Must it be seen? Absolutely, but be warned: it is a short run.
Dead Man Walking plays for five further performances at the Coliseum, London, until 18 November 2025