Dead Man Walking? Too long, says NY Times
NewsChief critic Zachary Woolfe gives a thumbs down to the Met’s season opener:
“Dead Man Walking,” which opened the Metropolitan Opera’s season on Tuesday, is about a man trying to put off his execution. And with this show, the Met is doing its best to avoid a fatal moment of its own….
In two acts and at two-and-a-half hours, it is also too long. Scenes almost inevitably outstay their welcomes, as if Heggie and McNally couldn’t resist just one more lush verse; on Tuesday, I often found myself simultaneously gripped and bored.
And, despite the powerful feelings ceaselessly on display, the opera never quite finds its way to riveting drama or tight conflict — even with a smartly airy production at the Met by Ivo van Hove, a pair of restrained yet charismatic stars in Joyce DiDonato and Ryan McKinny, and lavish playing from the orchestra, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the company’s music director.
Full Times review here.
The Washington Post also has doubts:
The production is not without its problems. For our introduction to the prison at Angola, a riot’s worth of convicts burst through the doors in a cloud of smoke (is it a prison or a cryogenic chamber?) to engage in what feels like a mass caricature of how prisoners behave: They brawl, they curse, they ogle the “woman on the tier.” One of them leans in like human italics to deride Sister Helen: “I’m talking to you, [expletive]!” It’s a bit much.
Likewise overdoing it was van Hove’s cinematic opening, which projected a prerecorded dramatization of the sexual assault and murder of the two youths on a giant screen. While the violence certainly sets the conditions for the existential challenge of Prejean’s longing to forgive, it also feels heavy-handed and indulgent in its brutality.
More reviews to follow.
“too long. Scenes almost inevitably outstay their welcomes… simultaneously gripped and bored.”
Every Wagner opera, lol.
If two-and-a-half hours is too long for an opera, I sincerely hope they never go to see Don Carlo.
It was an effort by the Met to canonize a 23-year-old opera.
From the clips, Woolfe is discussing the work, the WPost reviewer the staging. Two separate subjects.
An opera is never a “show.”
It only gets revived because of the “wokery”. YNS is desperate to appeal to anyone who will listen to any “cause” he can get his well manicured mitts on. Am wondering if he was in Prison Officer uniform or Cellmate uniform for this work?
It’s not great music … the piece has become a poloitized “cause”. People over sentamenalize it and confuse the storyline with good opera. It is actually quite boring.
It is an excellent work, the performances were riveting and your homophobia is revolting though all too typical of many of the racist and reactionary readers of this site.
Disdain for YNS has nothing to do with his sexuality.
No argument; just hand-wringing, pearl clutching and feel-your-pain tripe.
It’s telling that you consider exploring the themes of forgiveness, capital punishment, and our common humanity to be…woke.
The absolute worst selection of a MET season opening opera as ever was selected. Hegge’s over 20 year old “Dead Men Walking” is no crowd pleaser. The MET needs better leadership.
The good and self respected composers would find work in Hollywood Nashville Broadway. Then some opera houses think it’s cool to commission the rest.
These publications can’t find someone that is not a white man to do the reviews? They don’t seem to have any problems attacking performing arts organizations for lack of diversity. The hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness on display is sickening. Not to mention that neither Woolfe nor Brodeur is remotely qualified to write criticism of classical music.
Tell us where you derive your authority to determine who is qualified to write criticism of classical music and who isn’t?
The basic problem with DMW is that from the get-go it’s simply not a good opera…the music does not enhance the theme and the subject matter, and the libretto while trying to be hip and contemporary is terribly trite and uninspiring. One wonders what a genius like Verdi or Wagner might have fashioned out of this basic story!
“…feels heavy-handed and indulgent in its brutality.” Yeah, well maybe because rape, murder and sometimes death are brutal.
Please explain how this is possible: ” I often found myself simultaneously gripped and bored.”
My T-shirt says:
I WAS TRIGGERED BY IVO
Haven’t seen DMW but did 10 Rings at one point in my life.
I am 63, long 14 hour overnight shifts 40+ years hard physical labor.
I relish the thought of sitting anywhere doing anything listening to anything for two and a-half hours.
In 1979, in my younger years, I routinely took the older neighbors to Bingo . One very run down tough crowd hall we would go to — the hall to increase concession sales would take a fan on the counter and blow the popcorn and burger cooking odors OUT into the hall to entice the players to buy.
Everyone involved in Opera forms audience to administration to performance teams can each individually name one opera where they should…..blow the cooking odors OUT into the house to kill boredom.
We should rejoice that the pandemic got tapped down and Opera didn’t totally die off.
Let’s just applaud and go home with smiles.
That’s using our heads and our Reason-Ak.