Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking” has made its way to New York’s Metropolitan Opera 23 years after its premiere at the San Francisco Opera.
What many consider the most popular and often-performed modern American opera has been revived with a new production by Ivo van Hove and the Met Live HD season-opening slot.
Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said he was drawn to “Dead Man Walking,” one of the few contemporary operas to have found a place in the repertory worldwide, in part because of its record of success. “Bringing it to the Met was overdue,” Gelb said. “It symbolizes the efforts that we’re making to really transform the art form and to appeal to a much broader audience base …”
The opera—based on the 1993 memoir by Sister Helen Prejean, which was also adapted into the 1995 movie starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn—portrays Sister Helen’s struggle to save the soul of a convicted murderer, while matching the high drama of its subject with Heggie’s beautiful and poignant music and a brilliant libretto by Terrence McNally.
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