Freeze Frame Opera’s Dead Man Walking at Fremantle Prison a personal project for soprano Hattie Marshall

Freeze Frame Opera founder and soprano Hattie Marshall has a personal connection with her latest production, Dead Man Walking, written by Americans James Heggie and Terrence McNally. By day a defence lawyer, Marshall says Sister Helen Prejean’s story of mentoring a condemned murderer, popularised in the film of the same name, speaks to her professional experience. “Our music director Tommaso Pollio and I always discuss what we want to do next, and because we were using Fremantle Prison as a venue, it leapt out as a good choice to do an opera set in a prison, in a prison,” she says. “And for me it was very appealing because of my work as a criminal lawyer, there’s an overlap with the role of Sister Helen, who is the spiritual adviser to the death row inmate Joseph De Rocher. “My day job is working at the Aboriginal Legal Service, defending people. She comes at it from the point of view that everyone deserves forgiveness, that people should judge the crime not the criminal, and she doesn’t believe that he’s a bad person. “That’s what it’s like when I’m dealing with my clients, so that was appealing for me personally to play that role. “On a daily basis I’m dealing with people who have done bad things but they are not bad people. “They are humans and they are loved and loveable and I always have compassion for them, and I understand often it’s terrible life circumstances that have led them down a certain path. “I just believe in compassion for all people and I try to get that across to judges and magistrates in my day job.” Vaunted as the most performed opera written this century, Dead Man Walking had its only previous Australian outing in Adelaide two decades ago with superstar Teddy Tahu Rhodes as the lead. “I thought, what a great opportunity for a young baritone, and we had in mind to cast Lachlan Higgins in the role of Joseph De Rocher because he had done some work with Freeze Frame Opera as a young artist when he was straight out of WAAPA, and then he’s just completed two years of a post-graduate course in Wales,” Marshall says. “So we’re really excited to get him back to work with us, it’s a fantastic role for a young baritone.” Fremantle Prison is another character in the drama. FFO has played there before, among a long list of unconventional venues over the past decade, but never before made direct reference to its history. “It makes it more real. It’s a true story so the impact of it is magnified by the fact we are witnessing this in a prison where there was tremendous suffering and dozens of executions took place there,” Marshall says. “So it really hits home when you witness someone being executed, which happens at the end of this opera. He is guilty, he has been sentenced to death, all the appeals denied, and at the end the audience does witness his execution by lethal injection. “It really makes the argument about whether or not the death penalty is appropriate come to life. “And also, from Sister Helen’s point of view, she just believes that any killing is wrong, whether or not it is a murder or it’s by a government. I think it makes that point pretty well, though people will have the opportunity to form their own opinions.” Marshall describes Heggie’s music as “a modern masterpiece”. “It’s more difficult to learn than a Mozart opera, with different time signatures and keys moving around, but it’s still beautiful, tuneful, lyrical, gorgeous music throughout the opera,” she says. “Normally it’s for full orchestra but Tommaso has condensed the entire score for four instruments, piano, accordion, cello and clarinet in an arrangement that has taken him about 10,000 hours to put together. It’s really exciting, a different way of presenting this opera. Tommaso is a genius.” People will be moved, Marshall says. “It will prompt people to think about the fact that the death penalty is still in existence in many countries,” she says. “In the prison where the character was executed, Louisianna State Penitentiary, they have brought back the executions this year.” De Rocher’s mother, played by Lisa Hunter-Brown, pleads for his life and finds out on stage that he is to die. “That’s just heartbreaking to watch, as is the moment when she has to say goodbye to him for the last time,” Marshall says. “And then on the other hand you’ve got the parents of the two murdered teenagers, played in our opera by Brett Peart, Prudence Sanders, Brigitte Heuser and Perry Joyce. “They are absolutely traumatised, full of anger and rage, and you see their perspective also. So there are no winners really.” At a key point in the drama, Sister Helen quotes John’s Gospel to De Rocher: “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free” — also, curiously, the watchword of the CIA. “Her mission is, No.1, to save him from the death penalty, but secondly, maybe more importantly, she wants him to admit his guilt so that he can ask God for forgiveness,” Marshall says. “And at the very end of the opera he finally does that which, I think, then enables him to apologise to the parents, which is another really important moment. “Does it set him free? Sister Helen definitely believes so, because of her religious beliefs. Whether the compassion of humans is equal to the compassion of God is not clear. “Personally I am very anti the death penalty, very glad that they’ve abolished that here. I absolutely believe in forgiveness and redemption. I suppose I’ve seen a lot of examples of really good people that have in terrible circumstances done terrible things. “But they’re not bad people.” And De Rocher? “Despite revealing the worst part of himself to sister Helen, he dies knowing that he is loved.” Dead Man Walking is at Fremantle Prison, September 18-21.