Opera Now

Dead Man Walking: Walking with Sister Helen
November 2025

Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking has become the most-performed new opera of the 21st century. On the 25th anniversary of its premiere, Opera Now speaks to the interpreters of Sister Helen Prejean about the transformative power of inhabiting her story.

Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally's first opera together, Dead Man Walking, premiered at San Francisco Opera on October 7, 2000. Based on Sister Helen Prejean's 1993 memoir about how she became a death penalty activist, it became the most-performed new opera of the 21st century, with more than 80 productions to date. The opera opens with a violent crime and closes with the execution of Joseph De Rocher, one of the criminals. And there's Sister Helen herself, a plainspoken Roman Catholic nun whose strength of character and beliefs led her to become a spiritual advisor to death row inmates and an activist opponent of the death penalty.

Susan Graham, the mezzo-soprano who created Sister Helen, tells Opera Now: 'It was such a privilege to create this part, to honour and tell the story of this incredible woman, whose life mission has become known worldwide. To be able to walk in her shoes for three hours was such an honour, and a thrill, and a gift, really.' Further, said Graham, 'Singing Sister Helen made me a better person. It made me more compassionate, more questioning. Before you take on a role like this, the issue of capital punishment is outside our daily life. But once you walk in her shoes, there it is. And you begin to understand that there's a lot of injustice in our system.'