Dead Man Walking

Event Notes

Ticket pricing is inclusive of all applicable fees.

Met Premiere!

Jake Heggie’s powerful work has its highly anticipated Met premiere in a new production by Ivo van Hove. Based on Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir about her fight for the soul of a condemned murderer, Dead Man Walking matches the high drama of its subject with Heggie’s poignant music and a libretto by Tony and Emmy Award–winner Terrence McNally. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium, with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato starring as Sister Helen. The cast also features bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as the death-row inmate Joseph De Rocher, soprano Latonia Moore as Sister Rose, and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham—who sang Helen Prejean in the opera’s 2000 premiere—as De Rocher’s mother.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin (Conductor), Latonia Moore (Sister Rose), Joyce DiDonato (Sister Helen Prejean), Susan Graham (Mrs. Patrick De Rocher), Ryan McKinny (Joseph De Rocher)

Live in HD: October 21, 2023
Librettist: Terrence McNally
Production: Ivo van Hove
Set and Lighting Designer: Jan Versweyveld
Costume Designer: An D’Huys
Projection Designer: Christopher Ash
Sound Designer: Tom Gibbons

 

Pre Event Lecture

Presented by: Alan Mann

Alan Mann, artistic Director of Opera Theater of Connecticut, is also a renowned guest speaker, known for his Opera Talks—a series of informal, informative talks on operas and composers. He has been a “Special Lecturer” on many cruises, including an upcoming transatlantic trip with Royal Caribbean, and has been asked to speak before such groups as Evergreen Woods, Elim Park, and the Schiller Shoreline Institute for Lifelong Learning (SSILL). He has also served as Master of Ceremonies for numerous concerts across the country, punctuating them with interesting anecdotes and sharing his witty insights and knowledge of the “human” side of opera with the audience.

Mr. Mann frequently serves as a judge for various competitions, including The Jenny Lind National Competition for Sopranos, The Connecticut Opera Guild’s National Vocal Competition, The San Antonio Opera Competition, and Opera Theater of Connecticut’s Vocal Competition, as well as the English-Speaking Union’s Shakespeare competition.

His work in professional theater and opera has taken him from New York’s Lincoln Center to London’s West End to the Edinburgh Festival to the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival to The Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy to New York’s Broadway. His directing assignments span traditional opera, contemporary opera, comic opera, musical theater, and classic and modern theater.