Dead Man Walking

The Met launched its 2023–24 season with the company premiere of the most performed new work of the last two decades: Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. Based on the harrowing memoir by Sister Helen Prejean—which also inspired an Oscar-winning 1995 film—the opera follows Prejean as she ministers to a condemned man on death row. In this performance from the Met’s Live in HD series, acclaimed mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato delivers a wrenching portrayal as Sister Helen, starring alongside bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as Joseph De Rocher, who discovers that all of God’s children are worthy of redemption regardless of their crimes. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium to lead an austere yet utterly heartbreaking production by director Ivo van Hove.