Opera Magazine

‘Dead Man Walking’ at 25
July 2024

Countless new American operas have been shelved and all but forgotten after high-profile premieres. Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s ‘Dead Man Walking’, which had its first performance at San Francisco Opera on 7 October 2000 and is being revived there this September, is an exception to the rule. It is the most frequently performed opera written in the 21st century, having received more than 80 productions in places as far flung as Dresden, London, Cape Town, Sydney and Sing Sing – a maximum-security prison in Ossining, New York. What accounts for the unprecedented success of this opera based on Sister Helen Prejean’s 1993 memoir about her work as a spiritual adviser to convicted murderers on death row? We posed this question to 12 people with close ties to the opera, including Frederica von Stade, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Ryan McKinny, Jamie Barton, and Patrick Summers.