A quarter century after it burst onto the San Francisco stage with a story about capital punishment, justice and forgiveness, the opera Dead Man Walking is coming home.
The landmark work by San Francisco composer Jake Heggie and librettist Terrence McNally returns to the War Memorial Opera House, Sept. 14-28, as part of the San Francisco Opera's 103rd season. Since its world premiere in 2000, Heggie’s opera has received more than 70 productions worldwide, making it the most performed new American opera of the 21st century. As a story of grief, suffering, compassion, and redemption, Heggie attributes the story’s powerful themes to the opera’s success — and his decision to compose the work 25 years ago.
“(The story) was in the popular dialogue at that time nationally because of the movie and the book,” Heggie said, referring to the 1993 memoir of the same name by Sister Helen Pregean, who counseled Joseph De Rocher, a man on death row after brutally killing a young couple, and the 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.
“I recognized it was emotionally big enough to fill an opera house. There were characters that seemed like archetypes — nun, warden, parent — so an audience would be able to immediately identify with those people. And because of this size of emotion, it made sense for people to sing, not just speak.”
Heggie uses the word “miraculous” a lot and says it applies to the opera’s premiere.
In the 1990s, Heggie was working as a public relations associate at San Francisco Opera when Lotfi Mansouri, the company’s general director at the time, was looking to commission a new work by an American composer. The project, once selected, would be conducted by Patrick Summers and premiere at the War Memorial Opera House. Summers, however, knew of Heggie’s aspirations and tipped off Mansouri that the talent he was seeking was already in the building.
At a cocktail party soon after, Mansouri approached Heggie about the possibility of writing an opera and encouraged Heggie to discuss subjects with playwright McNally. Although Mansouri envisioned something light and frothy, that didn’t interest McNally. Instead, he presented Heggie with 10 dramatic ideas — with Dead Man Walking at the top of the list.
“Opera was sort of like a slow working drug that just drew me in,” Heggie said. “Then I was offered (the chance) to write an opera and that was my big break.
“I just think of San Francisco as a city of magical portals and doorways,” he continued. “This doorway opened, and I jumped right through.”
Now, at 64, Heggie has composed 10 operas. Heggie was inducted into OPERA America’s Opera Hall of Fame in 2024 and will join the composition faculty at San Francisco Conservatory of Music this fall.
Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, a longtime friend now slated to play Sister Helen in the Opera’s upcoming revival of the piece, believes Heggie’s music — lyrical and soaring — is what makes the opera so successful.
“It shows you the story from all the different aspects — the actual crime, the parents of the kids who were killed, the people who work in the jail. At no point does it tell you, ‘You have to be on his side,’ or ‘You shouldn’t be on his side,’” Barton said. “I'm so glad it’s Jake Heggie who wrote this because he really knows how to flesh out a human story, and Sister Helen Prejean is as human as it gets in so many ways.”
Barton, who portrayed Sister Helen once before in Atlanta, first met the nun in real life in 2019 over a lunch of fried chicken. Barton admitted she felt intimidated prior to her first meeting with Sister Helen, but soon found her easy to talk to. “It’s like Jake says — I’ve never met Gandhi, and I’ve never met Sister Teresa, but I’ve met Sister Helen,” Barton said.
This time, Barton will share the stage with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who originated the role of Sister Helen. Graham, now in her fourth production of Dead Man Walking, will play the mother of the convicted killer.
Graham recalled initially recoiling when Heggie asked her to portray Sister Helen in 2000, telling him she couldn’t do it because it was just too intense. But Heggie insisted that’s why she had to do it.
During the premiere, Graham's father died, a loss she inextricably associates with the role of Sister Helen. In 2017, when director Francesca Zambello asked Graham to join the production of Dead Man Walking at the Washington National Opera, she understood why Graham couldn't sing Sister Helen, but felt she would be a good fit to sing the mother instead.
“The first week of rehearsals, I could hardly breathe. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest with the visceral memory of the difficulty of (the premiere). But I’m so glad I did it,” Graham said of her decision to stick with the production. “The role I'm doing now, I get to pour all the emotion into her.”
Ryan McKinny, another close friend of Heggie’s, will play the convicted killer. He previously performed the role at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
The bass-baritone has deep ties to the creative team — Summers was his mentor while he was in the Houston Grand Opera apprentice program, and he trained alongside Barton. But the role carries personal weight for him; McKinny once befriended a death row inmate and visited him several times before the man died by suicide.
McKinny’s personal connection underscores what has kept Dead Man Walking relevant more than two decades later: the way private grief and public tragedy intersect onstage.
Heggie often recalls a moment when he was turning music pages during a recital with Met Opera soprano Leontyne Price in 1987, at the height of the AIDS crisis, that embodies that idea.
After the performance, Heggie watched Price exit the stage and fall into her brother’s arms, sobbing. She said she noticed a young man in the front row dying of AIDS was struggling to get up to give her a standing ovation. The crowd was calling for an encore, yet Price said she couldn’t bear to return to the stage. But her brother urged her to sing directly to the man.
“She pulled herself together. She wiped those tears off her face, she stood about 10 feet tall, walked through that door, looked at the young man, and sang ‘Vissi d'arte’ from ‘Tosca,’” Heggie recounted of the aria, which translates to “I Lived for Art.”
“I learned this is why we work so hard to perfect technique, to be able to do what we can do under any circumstance,” he went on, “because you are a healer, and you never know when you’re going to be called on to be of service like that.”
The Origins and Legacy of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking: A Timeline
1993
The memoir Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean’s account of being a spiritual advisor to a death row inmate, is published by Random House.
April 1994
Composer Jake Heggie joins San Francisco Opera as a public relations associate.
Sept. 10, 1994
Heggie composes songs for singers, including mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. The two begin working together in recitals.
1995
Dead Man Walking is adapted into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. Nominated for several Academy Awards, Sarandon wins for Best Actress.
1998
San Francisco Opera General Director Lotfi Mansouri discusses commissioning an opera for the millennium with conductor Patrick Summers. He hopes to discover a new composer to create a fun and frothy opera, perhaps a French farce. Summers says, “Well, that new composer is right here in your PR department.” At a cocktail party, Mansouri asks Heggie if he ever considered writing an opera. The next day, Heggie is summoned to Mansouri’s office ready to take notes for a press release. Mansouri says, “Put the pad down. Let’s talk about your opera,” and urges Heggie to meet with playwright Terrence McNally.
Heggie and McNally meet to discuss working together, neither one of which had worked on an opera before. McNally says there are 10 subjects he would consider, but won’t tell Heggie which of the 10 is the one he really wants to do. The first subject McNally mentions is Dead Man Walking and Heggie stops him, knowing that is the opera they should create together.
A new position, Composer in Residence, is created for Heggie at San Francisco Opera.
1999
A workshop of Heggie and McNally’s Dead Man Walking opera takes place in SF Opera’s rehearsal studio with piano and several singers who will later participate in the world premiere.
Oct. 7, 2000
The world premiere of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking is staged at San Francisco Opera, starring Susan Graham as Sister Helen, John Packard as Joseph De Rocher, and Frederica von Stade Mrs. Patrick De Rocher. The production is conducted by Patrick Summers and directed by Joe Mantello. Sister Helen Prejean is in attendance, as are several celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, Robin Williams, Woody Harrelson, Julie Andrews, and Garry Marshall. A recording captures the premiere.
2002
A consortium of seven opera companies commission a new production of Dead Man Walking directed by Leonard Foglia. The companies are Opera Pacific, Cincinnati Opera, New York City Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Pittsburgh Opera, and Baltimore Opera.
2006
Dead Man Walking is staged in Germany at the Dresden Semperoper — the first of four productions by the company.
2008
At UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall, San Francisco Opera presents the local premiere of Heggie’s chamber opera Three Decembers, a co-commission of Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera.
2009
Dead Man Walking is staged for the first time at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen.
Oct. 12, 2012
San Francisco Opera presents the local premiere of Heggie’s Moby-Dick opera at the War Memorial Opera House. The work is a co-commission of Dallas Opera, San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, Calgary Opera, and the State Opera of South Australia.
2015
Opera Parallele presents Dead Man Walking at Yerba Buena Gardens. Catherine Cook, who performed Jade Boucher in the world premiere, is now Mrs. Patrick De Rocher and visited backstage by Frederica von Stade.
January 2018
Dead Man Walking is staged at Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain.
Nov. 17, 2018
San Francisco Opera presents the local premiere of Heggie’s It’s a Wonderful Life opera, a co-commission of Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.
2019
Dead Man Walking is staged at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Welsh National Opera, Atlanta Opera, and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, among others.
September 2023
The Metropolitan Opera opens its 138th season with Dead Man Walking starring Joyce DiDonato, Ryan McKinny, and Susan Graham as Mrs. Patrick De Rocher. Excerpts from the opera are performed by Metropolitan Opera performers at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison north of New York City, with a chorus of incarcerated men.
Sept. 14, 2025
Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking returns to the War Memorial Opera House in a special 25th anniversary production starring Jamie Barton as Sister Helen Prejean, Ryan McKinny as Joseph De Rocher, and Susan Graham as Mrs. Patrick De Rocher. Patrick Summers conducts and Leonard Foglia directs. Sister Helen Prejean is scheduled to attend and lead a discussion on capital punishment titled “Faith, Law & the Death Penalty” at the Sydney Goldstein Theater with Jake Heggie and two panels of faith leaders and policy experts.
Sept. 18, 2025
A revolutionary, immersive production of Dead Man Walking takes place at Fremantle Prison in Australia.
