Financial Times

Composer Jake Heggie on his death row opera, Dead Man Walking
September 2023

Heggie was 39 at the time of the premiere of Dead Man Walking. He had been working in San Francisco Opera’s public relations office and entrusting him with a commission for his first opera must have been a big gamble, but it certainly paid off. Two decades on, Dead Man Walking is said to be the most performed opera written in the 21st century. It has received nearly 80 productions, from Montreal to Sydney, Copenhagen to Cape Town, and has been chosen to open the 2023-24 season at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in a new production by Ivo van Hove.