Provocative Opera
Re Mark Swed’s “When Telling a Story Just Isn’t Enough” (Dec. 3): It’s difficult to see how Swed could leave the San Francisco Opera’s ambitious and faithful production of “Dead Man Walking” believing that the opera “clearly tells us [the death row inmate] should die” and presuming to announce that audiences feel “good about the finality, about things working out as we know they should in a just nation.”
On the contrary, for supporters and opponents of the death penalty alike, this thought-provoking opera raises wrenching questions, such as whether the state should perpetuate the cycle of violence by killing killers, whether as a civilized nation we pay too high a price for “finality,” and whether even the families of murder victims can find any peace or solace in executions.
Swed seriously underestimates both the creators of “Dead Man Walking” and its audiences by attributing such vapid and superficial attitudes to them.
STEPHEN F. ROHDE
Los Angeles
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