‘Dead Man Walking’ Receives UK Premiere at ENO • November 2025
London, United Kingdom
Dead Man Walking at English National Opera / photo by Manuel Harlan
Continuing a monumental string of 25th anniversary performances, Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking receives the United Kingdom’s first fully staged professional production at English National Opera. The new staging by Annilese Miskimmon stars Christine Rice, Michael Mayes, and Dame Sarah Connolly, with Kerem Hasan leading the ENO Orchestra.
The Guardian: ‘Raise the questions. Don’t provide the answers’: Heggie on 25 years of Dead Man Walking
Gramophone Podcast: Heggie on 25 years of writing operas
Gramophone: Classical Music Season Preview
Financial Times: The 10 most anticipated and controversial operas of this season
Opera Now: Dead Man Walking: Walking with Sister Helen
The Arts Desk: Kerem Hasan on the transformative experience of conducting Heggie's 'Dead Man Walking'
BBC Radio 3: Tom with Penguin Cafe and Jake Heggie
Opera Magazine: ‘Dead Man Walking’ at 25
San Francisco Chronicle: Why ‘Dead Man Walking’ is the most performed new opera of the last 25 years
Critical Acclaim
Michael Mayes and Christine Rice in Dead Man Walking at English National Opera / photo by Manuel Harlan
“Despite the harrowing subject matter, Heggie and librettist Terrence McNally bring a great deal of humanity and simple wisdom to a story in which extraordinary events affect ordinary people. Heggie’s masterly score is unashamedly tonal, drawing on hymns and spirituals, jazz and blues, yet never sounding like mere pastiche. The music is propulsive and supportive by turns, easily holding the attention throughout a work that makes a virtue of taking time to tell its tale.”
–The Guardian
“Dead Man Walking has already entered the repertory as a modern classic, a rarity in opera, where even success often burns brightly before fading. Yet Heggie’s work endures: a drama of moral courage and emotional immediacy that continues to challenge audiences wherever it is performed. The music is accessible and often cinematic, coloured by hints of jazz and gospel, while the story convincingly humanises both the convict and the nun. It is a contemporary meditation on guilt and grace, refracted through the stark realities of modern America’s death chambers. As the opera moves towards its close, Heggie pares everything back to essentials. It lands with quiet inevitability. What could so easily have tipped into melodrama feels instead like hard-won truth: the moment when guilt, forgiveness and love finally coexist in uneasy peace. By the curtain, the ENO audience sat in stunned silence, proof, if any were needed, that Dead Man Walking still has the power to hit like a moral earthquake.”
–London Unattached
“If you want to experience contemporary opera at its most compelling, harrowing and intensely delivered, do go and see English National Opera’s new staging of Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. It’s easy to spot influences in Heggie’s profusely written music: the pounding riffs of Bernstein, a Gershwinesque lyricism, American folk hymns and lots of film score atmospherics, for a start. But it all works. It’s the perfect vehicle for a drama that deals with the very essence of morality, judgment and conscience.”
–The Times
“When a new opera receives 85 productions in 25 years you know it must be something extraordinary. So all eyes were on the Coliseum for the British premiere of McNally and Heggie’s Dead Man Walking. The operatic version packs an even bigger emotional punch than the film. The opening scene is the most shocking spectacle I’ve ever seen on the operatic stage, but it has a dramatic purpose; to make us withhold sympathy from de Rocher when we meet him later in prison, and question the wisdom of Sister Helen, so fixated on saving his soul. It says much for the subtlety of the music, the text and direction that these moral ambiguities register so clearly, even though they’re uttered in the plain language and song of ordinary people who are hurt and bewildered. Their stammerings are given shape by Heggie’s amalgam of Copland-like American pastoral, pinched Britten-esque harmonic tension and open-hearted Americana, including hymns, blues and jazz. The production is a triumph.”
–The Telegraph
“Dead Man Walking broaches big subjects and addresses them with depth and dramatic flair. From the outset, it pulls no punches. After a brief, lyrical opening in which two teenagers cavort by a Louisiana lakeside, Heggie’s music turns nasty as their brutal rape and murder by De Rocher and his unnamed brother is shown in explicit detail. McNally’s libretto is masterful in its economy of means: the action may now be in the characters’ thoughts and dialogues rather than their deeds, but so tautly does McNally depict it, so expertly do both composer and librettist create the emotional ebb and flow, so skilfully does director Miskimmon create the conditions for the singers to portray these emotions at their strongest that I defy anyone to see this opera and come out unmoved. Heggie’s music is the antithesis of 20th-century avant-garde. He’s not shy of pulling in popular American forms, whether gospel, rock’n’roll, jazz, Broadway or anything else. But the music for Dead Man Walking is no mere pastiche patchwork: within its overall filmic style, there are many spells of original music of brilliantly orchestrated high intensity. This is what contemporary opera should be: using the power of music to explore important themes of today in a way that cannot fail to leave you unmoved.”
–Bachtrack
“McNally and Heggie build a focussed portrait of Sister Helen and De Rocher, who’s been condemned to death for murdering a young couple. Composer and librettist clearly share Sister Helen’s opposition to capital punishment, but they don’t make a sermon out of it. From the undulating, surging overture onwards, Heggie demonstrates a confident control of dramatic momentum. He places Southern gospel alongside conventional hymnody and lushly orchestrated passages that wouldn't be out of place in a 1950s Hollywood melodrama. Everything coheres, thanks not least to conductor Hasan’s well-paced reading. It may have taken 25 years for London to see the opera properly staged, but it was worth the wait.”
–Evening Standard
“If ever a story was operatic it’s Dead Man Walking. Big characters, bigger emotions, and stakes higher than both – no wonder Heggie and McNally’s show has racked up an unprecedented 80 international stagings since its premiere. Opera gets into the emotional cracks other genres can’t reach, and Dead Man Walking finds every cranny in this jagged, pitted story. Heggie’s language isn’t afraid of sentimentality – gospel-style spiritual ‘He will gather us around’ is the redemptive sweetness running through the opera’s core – but it’s tempered by a salty, bluesy outer layer, as well as the crunch of symphonic ferocity. Contemporary popular opera: it sounds like a contradiction in terms, but Dead Man Walking squares the circle. Songful and direct, serving up moral ambiguity with musical conviction, it’s music-theatre in the purest sense.”
–The i
“Heggie’s score is very strong at generating atmosphere and capturing changes in mood. Above all, the case against the very principle of the death penalty feels powerful, as the opera questions whether any human being ever has the right to take another life, if anyone is truly beyond redemption, and whether ‘revenge’ of this type really benefits anyone.”
–Opera Online
“It’s impossible to ease into the abstract after watching (it felt more like feeling) this extraordinary UK premiere production of Heggie’s visceral opera. Almost imperceptibly, the holy trinity of opera’s unique storytelling became solidly established. The music, lyrics and acting seamlessly fed off each other, the enhanced storytelling, that only opera and musical theatre at their absolute peaks can deliver, was there in front of me, insistent. I couldn’t avert my eyes now. The music illuminated the light and dark of the human soul.”
–Broadway World
“All praise to McNally’s libretto and Heggie’s music for opening up the large matters of grief, loss, and soul that pervade this story – for reminding us how the intimate can become immense. Heggie has created at least seven rewarding roles. He provide one ensemble, dominated by the four parents of the dead couple, that really breathes new life into the operatic potential of multiple characters sharing the same moment, and yet the opera rises to even greater heights in duets and solos.”
–SlippeDisc
“Heggie’s eclectic accompaniment becomes an instrumental conversation gracefully underscoring the verbal conversations onstage. And when the action dissolves into outbursts of fury by the protagonists, the orchestral sound becomes thunderous.”
–Hackney Gazette
“English National Opera’s production of what is probably Heggie’s most celebrated work deserves high praise. The score brings fresh textures to the drama, especially in the many scenes involving conflict and grief.”
–Church Times
“Rape and murder in the State of Louisiana might not sound like promising material for opera, but this was transformative. There is anger, hatred and grief, but also justice, compassion, and the opportunity for redemption. What makes it work — and it works superbly — is McNally’s skilful libretto, plus the remarkable music by Heggie. The music speaks clearly to the action on stage, embracing great power and angst as well as beautiful tranquil moments. This is an opera on a broad canvas dealing simultaneously with various shifting perspectives. Thank goodness it has arrived at ENO at last.”
–The Article
“An extraordinary success: the unusually unanimous five-star rating from the most important local newspapers is a well-deserved recognition. The audience howled their approval like never before, their shouts completely drowning out the conventional applause. Why does this work continue to arouse an enthusiasm unknown in other contemporary operatic experiments? Firstly, because of the relevance of a proselytizing of compassion that seems to incorporate more and more people the more obvious the growing cruelty of political power in the United States of America becomes. But there is something else, already within the realm of theatrical dramaturgy, that explains the success of Heggie's opera: with this work it is almost impossible to do a bland production because no singer or director can remain half-hearted in the face of a narrative that demands total commitment. And since Heggie himself has defined himself as a composer of songs with vocalizations without acrobatics and comfortably adapted to the singers' range, the opera ended up coming out with moving duets and moments of irresistible effectiveness. Heggie emphasizes the compassion Prejean requested by including in his score the nun's claim that she made a plea to the condemned man: that he look at her during the execution as if he were looking at the face of Christ. By November, it's safe to say that hardly any other operatic production in the UK this year can compete with the ENO's Dead Man Walking.”
–Mundoclasico
“Hats off to English National Opera for such an exemplary production. Heggie’s music incorporates elements of spirituals, blues, gospel, jazz, hymns as well as cinematic tools. The overall experience is breathtaking, hence on the first night the audience’s silent focus was palpable throughout. Heggie’s piece is not an easy watch but should be seen by all.”
–Seen and Heard International
“To judge by the huge impression made on the audience, the 25-year wait for Dead Man Walking has been worth it, with superb acting and singing, inspired direction and intriguing music from Heggie all playing their part. Ranging from gospel music to dramatic sounds to accompany the rape and murder depicted at the start of the opera, Heggie manages always to enhance what we are seeing, without letting the orchestral sound become too prominent. The most profound moment comes at the end when de Rocher receives his lethal injection. I have never seen such total concentration in a theatre audience and rarely heard such complete silence as accompanied Heggie's solemn music. Even the usual mandatory coughing was completely absent. Dead Man Walking is not something to go to if you want to be entertained, but for an emotional experience that challenges your views on every aspect of humanity and the death sentence, it is unbeatable. This is certainly the most intense and probably the best opera I have ever seen from the ENO.”
–Daily Express
“The piece is unquestionably one of the key operas of our time. McNally’s sure-footed libretto is perfectly structured, and Heggie’s score broadly traditional, accomplished and overwhelmingly powerful. Hasan brings ample forward drive to the extraordinary score. It’s a piece whose dark narrative contains touches of humanity and warmth.”
–The Stage
“There’s real lyrical muscle in Heggie’s aching score…it pulls you in. ENO deserves high praise for this impressive UK premiere.”
–The Spectator
“English National Opera’s (ENO) new production of Heggie and McNally’s Dead Man Walking is a towering achievement – musically, dramatically and emotionally. It combines unflinching honesty with rare compassion, and is the company’s most affecting triumph in years. Heggie’s score is a deft blend of lyricism and dissonance, and Hasan’s pacing was immaculate – the climaxes powerful yet never overwrought, the quiet passages suspended in unbearable stillness. Those who were there witnessed something extraordinary. It’s opera as moral inquiry, but also as sheer human drama – gripping, compassionate and musically first-rate. Rarely has the Coliseum felt so charged, or an ENO production so essential.”
–Music OMH
“English National Opera’s new production of Dead Man Walking brought a dimension that was amplified through the quality of its principal singers…Heggie’s arresting overture, and the execution scene, with an especially gruesome and harrowing orchestration. This production is a complete masterpiece to which those in London this November should run, not walk.”
–Opera Now
“The English National Opera premiere has the force of a thunderclap, and Dead Man Walking reminds us that opera can have a searing contemporaneity. Never before seen in a full professional production in London, the opera feels intensely of the moment – its hot button topic no more emotive now than at the time of its San Francisco premiere 25 years ago. Indeed, one can imagine the piece landing very differently depending on precisely where this collaboration between Heggie and McNally is being performed. But the achievement of the piece, and this iteration of it, is to stun an audience into silence and to land us – as the best art often does – somewhere beyond tears.”
–London Theatre
“Heggie's score is luminous. His compositional strategy creates recursive loops wherein nothing remains simple—the repeated motif ‘Haven't we all suffered enough?’ functions like a nail penetrating defences through sheer directness. Dead Man Walking excavates the darkest human caverns whilst discovering, miraculously, compassion's persistent flicker. The opera's 2025 production feels urgent. With cruelty normalised, viciousness elevated as virtue, compassionate institutions under assault, executions championed anew, empathy derided, and social media amplifying hate, Dead Man Walking resonates with devastating contemporary relevance. Its impact felt seismic. This is opera at its highest capacity: posing unanswerable questions, creating space for profound feeling, then releasing us—irrevocably touched, fundamentally altered, alone with reconfigured thoughts. This production offers exceptional access to one of the twenty-first century's most significant operatic achievements, executed with impeccable artistry by world-class performers.”
–Scene Magazine
“Be prepared to stagger out of the theatre after the emotional intensity of this performance. English National Opera’s production at the London Coliseum of Heggie’s Dead Man Walking delivers a knockout punch. How did this opera take so long to get a professional staging in the UK? The intervening 25 years have not dulled the opera’s relevance or power. Heggie and McNally, based their work on the memoirs of Sister Helen Prejean. It was an inspired choice — the issue of capital punishment is still a live topic in the US. The case for clemency is made so persuasively, and none of this would work without Heggie’s score. It is one thing to debate the issue of capital punishment, quite another to have it argued in music as heart-rending as the mix of Puccini and Britten, hymn tunes and jazz, that Heggie has so skilfully woven, and played for all its worth by the ENO orchestra. It all adds up to a devastating evening.”
–Financial Times