Dead Man Walking
Dead Man Walking begins and ends with a murder: one by A man, the other by the state. The question posed by Jake Heggie’s opera— based on activist Sister Helen Prejean’s bestselling eponymous memoir—is whether justice can be served, and forgiveness granted, in either case. Turning away from the public spectacle of investigations, trials, and convictions, Dead Man Walking instead welcomes audiences into the intimate and often unseen spaces where the innerworkings of the criminal justice system play out: prison cells, offices, visiting rooms, and parking lots. In so doing, it demonstrates how waves of grief, pain, doubt, and hope ripple through communities grappling with violence and its aftermath.
Following on the success of his debut production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni during the Met’s 2022–23 season, Tony Award–winning director Ivo van Hove’s new staging of Dead Man Walking expands upon its predecessor’s abstract, minimalist vision. “We chose in this case, for this opera, not to create realistic sets,” van Hove remarks. “In the beginning, we are actually in a nunnery, then we go to a community center, and then we end up in the prison. And it’s that journey we wanted to bring to the stage in a more abstract way.” Using video projections to depict the central murder from three distinct vantages—those of a neutral observer, the perpetrator, and finally the victims—this production prompts a confrontation with the magnitude and humanity of the events that set it in motion.
This guide approaches Dead Man Walking as an entry point into contentious and evergreen conversations about the criminal justice system in the United States, as well as the powers—and limits—of faith, compassion, resentment, and love. The materials on the following pages include an introduction to Prejean’s writing and activism, histories of capital punishment in the United States and the linkages between mass incarceration and racial slavery, analyses of Jake Heggie’s musical language, and classroom activities that encourage students to tackle the work’s thorny issues with nuance and care while considering structural questions of plot and characterization. By exploring numerous curricular connections that reach well beyond contemporary public policy debates, students will gain a deeper understanding of how social, political, and legal structures shape the world we inhabit.
Included in the 2023-24 season of HD Live in Schools.
