Opera News

Earned Moment
September 2023

Dream Team Reunited: Joyce DiDonato & Jake Heggie Join Forces for the Met Premiere of Dead Man Walking.

Dead Man Walking is the most successful of all contemporary American operas, with seventy-four productions on five continents since its premiere at San Francisco Opera in 2000. Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir of counseling a death-row prisoner at the Louisiana State Penitentiary had served as the basis for the acclaimed 1995 film, but composer Jake Heggie and librettist Terrence McNally turned it into a full-scale grand opera—one that has been seen at large companies and small, at conservatories and on concert stages. The work finally reaches the Met at this month’s opening-night performance, in a production by Ivo van Hove that was delayed by Covid.