This event is free and open to the public.

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Read the entire article on page 12 of the February issue of Intermission magazine.

The experience of watching Dead Man Walking the opera is even more intense.  It’s harder to watch this story unfold in front of your eyes, unfiltered by a lens and a screen.  You feel as naked and helpless as the murdered teenagers, as devastated and outraged as the parents, as terrified of the lethal injection as the murderer and as overwhelmed as the woman who tries to heal and redeem.  You break down and cry, and hang on to the music for comfort.

Dead Man Walking is hard to watch, and it’s hard to perform.  The cast has to take frequent breaks in rehearsals and can repeat scenes only so many times in one session.  This is the kind of theatre that hollows you out to make room for empathy and understanding.  Not many of our audience will leave the theatre whistling the tunes, but most will find themselves re-visiting the story and the music in their minds and sharing their thoughts with friends and relatives for days and weeks after the performance.

A few months ago, we published some information about Sister Helen Prejean as we were getting ready for this show. Just today, the staging rehearsals have begun and it struck us that as a piece of theatre, this opera is quite masterful. Jake Heggie is quite a talented composer, but you may not have heard of him, so let’s get to know him just a little bit.

Jake Heggie, Composer & Pianist

Jake Heggie is the American composer of the operas Moby-Dick (libretto: Gene Scheer), Dead Man Walking (libretto: Terrence McNally), Three Decembers (libretto: Scheer), The End of the Affair (libretto: Heather McDonald), To Hell and Back (libretto: Scheer), and the stage works For a Look or a Touch (libretto: Scheer) and At the Statue of Venus (libretto: McNally). He has also composed more than 200 art songs, as well as orchestral, choral and chamber music. His recent recording of songs and duets, PASSING BY: Songs by Jake Heggie, (AVIE), features performances by Isabel Bayrakdarian, Zheng Cao, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Paul Groves, Keith Phares, and Frederica von Stade.

Heggie is the 2010-11 guest artist-in-residence at the University of North Texas at Denton, where he will compose his first symphony, based on several Ahab monologues from the novel Moby-Dick. The “Ahab” Symphony will receive its premiere in 2012 with tenor Richard Croft as soloist. Other current projects include song commissions from Carnegie Hall (for Joyce DiDonato), San Francisco Performances (for DiDonato and the Alexander String Quartet), The Dallas Opera (for baritone Nathan Gunn), and Houston Grand Opera (to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks); as well as a one-act opera for chorus for the John Alexander Singers and the Pacific Chorale, and a new version of For a Look or a Touch that features the 200-voice Seattle Men’s Chorus.

Heggie’s operas have been performed to tremendous acclaim internationally in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, Austria, South Africa and by more than a dozen American opera companies, including: San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Houston Grand Opera, The Dallas Opera, Seattle Opera, Ft. Worth Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Austin Lyric Opera and Madison Opera. Dead Man Walking has been performed nearly 150 times since its San Francisco premiere in 2000, making it one of the most performed new American operas. Moby-Dick received its 2010 world premiere at The Dallas Opera and was co-commissioned by Dallas with four other companies: San Francisco Opera, San Diego Opera, Calgary Opera and the State Opera of South Australia.

The composer’s numerous songs and cycles, including The Deepest Desire, Statuesque, Here & Gone, Rise & Fall, Songs & Sonnets to Ophelia, Facing Forward/Looking Back, Friendly Persuasions, and Songs to the Moon, are featured in recitals around the world by some of the world’s most beloved and celebrated singers. Among those who regularly champion Heggie’s works are sopranos Emily Albrink, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Kristin Clayton, Nicolle Foland, Audra McDonald, Emily Pulley, Talise Trevigne, Kiri Te Kanawa; mezzos Zheng Cao, Joyce Castle, Catherine Cook, Joyce DiDonato, Susan Graham, Kristine Jepson, Frederica von Stade; Broadway soprano Patti LuPone; tenors Stephen Costello, Paul Groves, Ben Heppner, Nicholas Phan; and baritones Philip Cutlip, Daniel Okulitch, Keith Phares, Morgan Smith and Bryn Terfel.

Heggie is an ardent champion of writers. Most of his operas and stage works feature libretti written by either Terrence McNally or Gene Scheer; while sources for song texts and poetry have also included Maya Angelou, Charlene Baldridge, Raymond Carver, Emily Dickinson, John Hall, A.E. Housman, Vachel Lindsay, Philip Littell, Armistead Maupin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sister Helen Prejean, Gini Savage, Vincent Van Gogh, Frederica von Stade, and Eugenia Zukerman, to name a few. The composer has a close association with the conductor Patrick Summers, who has led the world premieres of all the composer’s major operas; and the director Leonard Foglia, who has directed the premieres of Moby-Dick, Three Decembers, and The End of the Affair, as well as the United States national tour of Dead Man Walking.

Recordings of Heggie’s compositions include PASSING BY: Songs by Jake Heggie (Avie), Dead Man Walking (Erato), Three Decembers (Albany), Flesh and Stone (Americus), To Hell and Back (Magnatune), The Faces of Love (RCA Red Seal), The Deepest Desire (Eloquentia), and For a Look or a Touch (Naxos). Heggie was the recipient of a 2005/2006 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and has been composer-in-residence for the San Francisco Opera, Eos Orchestra, and Vail Valley Music Festival. As a coach and teacher, he has given classes at universities throughout the United States and at summer festivals such as SongFest in Malibu and the Steans Institute at Ravinia. Jake Heggie lives in San Francisco. www.jakeheggie.com.

Courtesy of The Official Website of Jake Heggie
© 2010 Bent Pen Music, Inc.

Sister Prejean, a Louisiana nun, became the spiritual advisor and witness to the execution of Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie.  In 1993 she documented her life-changing experiences in a best-selling book: Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, later adapted to an Oscar-winning film featuring Susan Sarandon as Sister Prejean in 1995.  In 2000, the San Francisco Opera commissioned the adaptation of the book and film into what became one of the most revered American contemporary operas.

“The TU College of Law is pleased to partner with Tulsa Opera in presenting a lecture by Sister Helen Prejean, who will speak about the death penalty,” said Janet Levit, Dean and Dean John Rogers Endowed Chair. “This event is a perfect fit for TU Law, as one of our professors, Lyn Entzeroth,is one of the nation’s leading scholars on the death penalty. Sister Prejean’s presentation is also a great example of how diverse entities from art and higher education can join to enrich the community.”

Sister Prejean’s book, The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions, will be on sale before her lecture.

A Nobel-prize nominated activist and advocate, Sister Prejean describes herself as “an ordinary person who got involved in extraordinary events.”    She continues to travel the world bringing the issues of capital punishment to a public forum.

“Larger-than-life and down-to-earth, she is truly the kind of person that makes the perfect opera heroine,” said Kostis Protopapas, Tulsa Opera artistic director.

Performances of Dead Man Walking will be held in the Chapman Music Hall at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center on Saturday, February 25, 2012 and Friday, March 2, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. and a matinee on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 2:30 p.m.  All performances will be sung in English.  Due to the mature subject matter and a brief nudity scene, this production is not recommended for those under 18 years-of-age.

About Sister Helen Prejean – Sister Prejean began her prison ministry in 1981 when she dedicated her life to the poor of New Orleans. While living in the St. Thomas housing project, she became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers, sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. Upon Sonnier’s request, Sister Prejean repeatedly visited him as his spiritual adviser. In doing so, her eyes were opened to the Louisiana execution process. Sister Helen turned her experiences into a book that made the 1994 American Library Associates Notable Book List and was nominated for a 1993 Pulitzer Prize. Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States was No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List for 31 weeks. In January 1996, the book was developed into a major motion picture starring Susan Sarandon, who portrayed Sister Prejean, and Sean Penn. The movie received four Oscar nominations, and Sarandon won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The book also is the basis for a new opera first presented by the San Francisco Opera in October 2000.

About Tulsa Opera – Founded in 1948, Tulsa Opera enhances the cultural landscape of Oklahoma by providing high quality, locally produced opera and contributes to the future of the operatic art form by educating the community about opera and its role in our culture.  Tulsa Opera is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization presenting productions made possible, in part, by generous funding from our patrons, the Oklahoma Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About The University of Tulsa College of Law – Founded in 1923, the TU College of Law is a private law school that provides an academically rigorous, yet congenial atmosphere with opportunities for scholarship, leadership and faculty and alumni mentoring. Students develop practical skills through participation with student-driven legal journals, award-winning moot court teams, and an on-campus clinic. In addition to being one of the nation’s leading legal centers for energy law and Indian law, TU Law prepares students for a broad range of fields and offers joint interdisciplinary degrees, such as a JD/MBA and a JD/MTAX. TU’s Mabee Legal Information Center is recognized as one of the nation’s top university law libraries. For more information on the University of Tulsa’s College of Law, visit www.utulsa.edu/law.

Performances of Dead Man Walking will be held in the Chapman Music Hall at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center on Saturday, February 25, 2012 and Friday, March 2, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. and a matinee on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 2:30 p.m.  All performances will be sung in English.

“It is a quintessentially American story, told by composer Jake Heggie in a quintessentially American musical idiom, that is both thought provoking and stirring,” said Kostis Protopapas, artistic director of Tulsa Opera.  “The opera takes us on a musical journey through complicated emotional and moral issues, and delivers a punch that lingers.”

A young nun, Sister Helen, working with the poor in the projects outside New Orleans, becomes a pen pal – and eventually the spiritual advisor – to Joseph De Rocher, a murderer on death row.  Through meetings with him, his family and the parents of his victims, Sister Helen makes a journey through pain, conflict and grief to help De Rocher find his way to the truth – and the redemptive power of love.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported after the opening of the opera on Oct. 9, 2000,  “The commissioned score, the maiden effort of composer Jake Heggie and librettist Terrence McNally, must be reckoned something of a masterpiece — a gripping, enormously skillful marriage of words and music to tell a story of love, suffering and spiritual redemption.”

One of the country’s most riveting and significant young artists performing today, Mezzo-Soprano Kirstin Chávez makes her Tulsa Opera debut in the role of Sister Helen.  Chavez has captured attention and acclaim in her signature roles and is known as the definitive Carmen of the day.   In her 2008 debut at the Sidney Opera House with Opera Australia, she was called “stunning …with a confident and earthy stage presence and rich powerful voice.”   She has performed with the New York City Opera, Tokyo Opera and Minnesota Opera.

Kirstin is joined by baritone, Michael Mayes, making his Tulsa Opera debut as Joseph De Rocher, a murderer on death row.  With a commanding voice and sense of drama, Mayes is known for his passionate portrayals of iconic characters such as as Valentin in Faust with Opera Birmingham; the title role in Don Giovanni with Shreveport Opera and Escamillo in Carmen at Kentucky Opera.

Award-winning soprano Sheryl Woods performs the role of Mrs. Patrick DeRocher, mother of the convicted murderer.  Woods’ roles have ranged from Magnolia in Jerone Kern’s beloved Showboat to Violetta in La Traviata.  Her career has comprised over seventy-five roles in operas for countless American opera houses including New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, San Diego Opera, Santa Fe Opera and the Washington Opera.

Peter Lindskoog will return to Tulsa Opera as Owen Hart, the father of one of the murder victims, in Dead Man Walking.  Lindskoog was last on the Tulsa Opera stage as Germont in La Traviata , the opening production of TO’s 2010-2011 season.  Receiving commendations for his superb singing and stage presence, Opera News described his voice as a “handsome, fine-grained baritone.”  Recent engagements include a title role debut as Rigoletto with Opera Southwest and in Billy Budd for Pittsburgh Opera.

The production will be staged by Tulsa Opera frequent guest Johnathon Pape, whose most recent work with the Tulsa Opera was the 2010 production of La Traviata.

Dead Man Walking will be conducted by Jerome Shannon.  Shannon served as the Mobile Opera’s General Director and Principal Conductor for over 10 years, and currently is the Music Director and Conductor of Pensacola Opera.

Duet mini-subscriptions (Dead Man Walking and Madame Butterfly, starting at $50) are on sale now through the Tulsa Opera box office by calling (918) 587-4811.  Single tickets range in price from just $10 to $98 and can be purchased through www.myticketoffice.com .   Dead Man Walking is not recommended for audiences under 18 years due to brief violence and nudity.

For more information about Dead Man Walking, visit www.tulsaopera.com.

Performances by members of the company’s Studio Artist Program will include favorite opera arias and ensembles, as well as musical theatre songs.  Those performing include:

Stephanie Washington, a soprano and native Tulsan, received her Bachelor of Music degree from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music.  She went on to complete her studies at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, and has spent the past two summers as an apprentice with the Santa Fe Opera.

Sara Louise Petrocelli is a mezzo-soprano from New Jersey and is beginning her second season with Tulsa Opera as a studio artist.  She was recently with Opera Company of Middlebury (Vermont) and was a 2006 young artist for EPCASO in Italy.  She holds a Master of Music degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

James Callon, tenor, has spent the past two seasons on the main stage for Los Angeles Opera, Rogue Opera and Tulsa Opera, where he begins his second year of residency as a studio artist.  A native of Lakewood, CA, he received his Bachelor of Music in vocal performance from the University of California.

Wayne Hu, baritone, recently finished the last of his coursework at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music and will receive a Master of Music degree in vocal performance upon successful completion of exams.  He has served as a resident opera artist with Pine Mountain Music Festival (2006) and Opera North (2004).

Featured in the performances will be excerpts from the most successful American opera of the last ten years, Dead Man Walking, by Jake Heggie.  Based on the autobiographical bestseller by Sister Helen Prejean, which also inspired the award-winning film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, it is the true story of a nun – Sister Helen herself- who becomes the spiritual advisor of a convicted murderer on death row in 1980’s Louisiana.

Performances of Dead Man Walking will be held in the Chapman Music Hall at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center on Saturday, February 25, 2012 and Friday, March 2, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. and a matinee on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 2:30 p.m.  All performances will be sung in English.

Each season Tulsa Opera invites four to six promising young professional artists to participate in the Studio Artist Program.  Selected through national auditions, studio artists are embarking on their careers in the world of opera and gain professional experience by working directly with Tulsa Opera’s world-renowned staff and musicians.  They serve as primary artists for all Tulsa Opera education and outreach programs, including the Opera on Tour! initiative, reaching more than 30,000 students in more than 100 schools annually throughout Oklahoma and nearby states.  Performing in our mainstage productions, they have the opportunity to work with internationally acclaimed artists.

About Tulsa Opera – Founded in 1948, Tulsa Opera enhances the cultural landscape of Oklahoma by providing high quality, locally produced opera and contributes to the future of the operatic art form by educating the community about opera and its role in our culture.  Tulsa Opera is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization presenting productions made possible, in part, by generous funding from our patrons, the Oklahoma Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.