Joyce DiDonato to Star in Met Opera’s Season Opener, Dead Man Walking

Joyce DiDonato will star as Sister Helen Prejean in a new production of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking, which will open the forthcoming season at the Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday, September 26.

Based on Prejean’s memoirs, it tells the story of a nun and a death row inmate in the weeks leading up to his execution.

Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny plays that inmate, Joseph De Rocher. Soprano Latonia Moore appears as Sister Rose, and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, who originated the role of Sister Helen in the opera’s 2000 premiere, will play De Rocher’s mother. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, conducts every performance except October 8 and 12, when the baton will be taken by Steven Osgood.

The opera premiered with San Francisco Opera in 2000. Heggie is the composer and McNally wrote the libretto.

Ivo van Hove, who helmed last season’s new production of Don Giovanni, returns to direct. Broadway audiences know Van Hove from his productions of West Side Story and Network.

DiDonato was seen in last season’s Met debut of The Hours.

Dead Man Walking’s creative team also includes set and lighting designer Jan Versweyveld, costume designer An D’Huys, projection designer Christopher Ash, and sound designer Tom Gibbons in his Met debut.