A friendly note from baritone Tim Krol, who sang the role of Owen Hart in the highlights from Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking at Trinity Church last Tuesday night, led to a rather delightful discovery. Mindful of all the television cameras in place that night, I knew that the performance was being streamed on the church's website. What I hadn't anticipated is that the entire performance is still available in streaming video, right here.
I regretted losing my original post on that performance, a remarkably polished reading and a tremendously moving experience. Happily, you can see it for yourself. The first fifteen minutes or so is given over to introductory comments, including those of Sister Helen Prejean herself. Watching the video now, I'm reminded of the surges of emotion Joyce DiDonato and Frederica von Stade summoned again and again, as well as of the Trinity singers' excellence.
Of course, a cursory glance at Krol's own website reminds me that there was no reason to assume any sort of amateur quality to this performance. Krol, it turns out, is a former member of the renowned chamber choir Chanticleer, and has also sung as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra in music by John Tavener. His work in the heartbreaking sextet near the end of Act One -- along with that of Nacole Palmer, Hai-Ting Chinn, Matthew Hughes, DiDonato and Von Stade -- is exemplary.
The Trinity Church website includes a number of other performances by its choir; go here for streams of Brahms's Liebeslieder Waltzes and German Requiem (performed the previous weekend!), Handel's Messiah and Stravinsky's Les Noces.
Ms. Chinn, I should add, will present a recital on Thursday, Feburary 9 in the Rene Weiler Concert Hall at Greenwich House, on shady Barrow Street in the West Village. Accompanied by pianist Melody Fader, she'll be singing a premiere by Renée Favand, recent songs by David Sisco and Stefan Weisman, and Samuel Barber's Hermit Songs. Go here for more information.
What a pity that all that talent (and by extension, money) was wasted on such an awful piece. I went to the premiere in San Francisco and the amount of hype DMW received was unreal. A friend of mine was friends with Jake Heggie and I got to go back stage after--when my friend said to Heggie "You've written a masterpiece" I nearly fainted--that was fluffing of the worst sort.
Posted by: Henry Holland | February 06, 2006 at 10:29 PM
Henry, respectfully, a "masterpiece" DMW may not be in our time, though who knows what's to come. Even so, I was moved at NY City Opera, I was moved by the CD, I was moved in Pittsburgh and I remain so by the webcast. Call me a soft touch.
Posted by: Steve Smith | February 07, 2006 at 02:39 AM
Um, OK, "soft touch" neener, neener, neener! :-) :-)
I wonder, has Heggie tinkered with DMW since the prima? I know "End of the Affair" was extensively gone over after the Houston (I think) premiere, so it's possible. Heggie had no real experience writing for orchestra before DMW; he was a piano/voice songwriter. I felt his opera was blatantly derivative--a friend and I sat with the recording and listened to Act I and went "Britten, Peter Grimes Act II......Bernstein, Candide...etc"--and poorly orchestrated. Now, I'm not one to nag an opera for lack of total, complete originality--heck, I can listen to Peter Grimes and go "Porgy and Bess....Boris....La Traviata etc." but there's a line between being influenced by something and outright theft and I think Heggie crosses that line far too often.
My friend saw the production in Orange County and he felt the same thing I did: any power the opera has is from the basic story, not from what Heggie does with it. Just one example: when the guy dies, there's no music, really; at the premiere, just the beeping of the heart machine. I said to someone later (out of earshot of Heggie, hahaha) that it's bad that Heggie didn't have any music--which can go places that no text or staging can--to deal with this situation.
Oh well, to each his own. It's nice that a contemporary opera had such a good run of performances and for that alone, I'm really happy.
Posted by: Henry Holland | February 08, 2006 at 11:45 PM