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Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking

Presented by Houston Grand Opera at Wortham Theater Center - Brown Theater

January 22-February 6, 2011

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Houston Grand Opera presents Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking. Music by Jake Heggie, Libretto by Terrence McNally, Based on the novel by Sister Helen Prejean.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) continues its 2010-11 season with the company premiere of Dead Man Walking, American composer Jake Heggie’s masterful opera about compassion and redemption. Dead Man Walking, called “The most compelling new opera in decades” by The Associated Press, has played to sold-out houses across the United States and Europe since its world premiere. HGO celebrates the opera’s ten-year anniversary with a production featuring an all-star cast and acclaimed creative team.

“Having conducted many new operas in my career, it is singularly rewarding to come back to Dead Man Walking a decade after conducting its world premiere,” says HGO Music Director and conductor Patrick Summers. “What strikes me in 2010 about the opera Dead Man Walking is how successfully it honors its legacy as a Grand Opera, even as it whispers with intimacy.”

2011 Gramophone Artist of the Year and HGO Studio Alumna Joyce DiDonato returns to her artistic home at HGO to sing the role of Sister Helen Prejean, a role she sang at the New York City Opera. “Joyce DiDonato’s singing and acting of Sister Helen seems not merely perfect but a further creation beyond what composer and librettist could have imagined,” said Opera News. American baritone

Philip Cutlip, last seen at HGO in the role of Ariodates in Handel’s Xerxes (2010), sings his role debut as convicted felon Joseph De Rocher. Cutlip, no stranger to Heggie’s music, performed the west coast premiere of The End of the Affair in Seattle.

Canadian soprano and 2011 Grammy Award Nominee Measha Brueggergosman will make her HGO debut as Sister Rose. John Packard, who a decade ago created the leading role of Joseph De Rocher in the opera’s world premiere, returns to the piece in the role of Owen Hart, the father of the victim. Inimitable mezzo-soprano

Frederica von Stade, returns to Dead Man Walking in the role that Heggie and McNally created for her, Joe’s mother, Mrs. Patrick De Rocher. Von Stade has chosen to retire from the opera stage following these performances in Houston, after a career that has spanned more than four decades.

Acclaimed Broadway and opera director Leonard Foglia, who also directed the world premieres of Heggie’s The End of the Affair (HGO, 2004), Three Decembers (HGO, 2008) and Moby Dick in Dallas, as well as HGO’s mariachi opera, To Cross the Face of the Moon, returns to Houston to direct this production.

HGO Music Director Patrick Summers leads the cast with the the HGO Orchestra and Chorus. (Richard Bado, HGO Chorus Master and Karen Reeves, Children’s Chorus Master). Sets are designed by Michael McGarty, costumes by Jess Goldstein and lighting by Brian Nason. Projections created by Elaine McCarthy.

Dead Man Walking, libretto by Terrence McNally (Tony award winner for Kiss of the Spider Woman—The Musical (1993), Love! Valour! Compassion (1995), Master Class (1996) and Ragtime (1998).) is based on the novel by Sister Helen Prejean. “It is a drama that lands on a person at whatever precise point they are on their ‘journey’,” says Sister Helen Prejean.

Dead Man Walking opens on Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. in the Brown Theater of the Wortham Theater Center.

"Dead Man Walking makes the most concentrated impact of any piece of American music theater since West Side Story more than 40 years ago." - The Guardian (U.K.)

Sung in English with Surtitles

Adult content: contains strong language, nudity, and depictions of sexual activity and violence.

Dead Man Walking was commissioned by the San Francisco Opera. A co-production of Opera Pacific, Cincinnati Opera, New York City Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Pittsburgh Opera and Baltimore Opera. 

Photo courtesy of Pittsburgh Opera, photo by David Bachman.