Opera Dead Man Walking Will Premiere on PBS on Friday

The new season of Great Performances at the Met continues with its first primetime opera, Dead Man Walking, starring Joyce DiDonato, based on the memoir by Sister Helen Prejean and her fight for the soul of a condemned murderer. The opera premieres Friday, March 15, at 9pm on PBS.

Tony Award winner Ivo van Hove directs the production of composer Jake Heggie’s opera based on a true story, with a libretto by Tony Award winner Terrence McNally. Soprano Joyce DiDonato stars as Sister Helen alongside bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as the death row inmate Joseph De Rocher. The cast also features 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. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts. Grammy winner Rhiannon Giddens hosts the broadcast. Click here for TheaterMania’s review of the production.

The season of Great Performances at the Met continues through October on PBS. The lineup includes Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher, Puccini’s La Rondine starring Angel Blue, and Daniel Catán’s Florencia en el Amazonas starring Ailyn Pérez. The season includes two primetime operas, Dead Man Walking and the new, modern day production of Bizet’s Carmen starring Aigul Akhmetshina.