Retired lawyer and Houston-based philanthropist Franci Neely enjoyed a night at the opera on Sept. 26, 2023. “I was at the opening of Dead Man Walking at the Metropolitan Opera,” she says. “The opera is about the redemptive power of love and it was brilliant.”
Dead Man Walking is the one of the first operas Jake Heggie composed. It’s based on real-life events and has a libretto by Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally. Heggie adapted Sister Helen Prejean’s eponymous book about her experiences as a Roman Catholic nun trying to save a man’s soul as he sits on death row awaiting execution.
Heggie is an American composer born in Florida and raised in Ohio. He’s written over 300 art songs, chamber, orchestral, and choral pieces in addition to his 10 full-length operas. He composed Dead Man Walking decades ago, and it debuted at San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House in October 2000. He could never have imagined it opening the Met’s season back then. Heggie told The New York Times, “The Met was not doing new opera, particularly; it was not featuring or focusing on them. It just seemed a distant dream.”
Heggie continued, “I couldn’t have imagined when we wrote the piece that it would have this kind of life or power. And so, to be in the room with these literally genius creators was a real jolt. I just felt electricity in the room. I felt nervous. I felt great power and I felt a lot of ideas vibrating.”
Ivo van Hove directed the production, and Jan Versweyveld designed the set. “A lot of the opera is situated in the minds of the people,” explained van Hove. “This mental space became, for us, like a prison.”
In addition to the fantastic score, Franci Neely offers rave reviews about the casting. “Joyce DiDonato as Sister Helen, Ryan McKinny as the death row inmate, and Susan Graham as his mother were sublime,” enthuses Neely. “If only there were more people like Sister Helen Prejean in the world.”
The Met production is the fourth time mezzo-soprano DiDonato is singing the role of Sister Helen. McKinny, a bass-baritone, previously portrayed the death row inmate in 2019 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. And mezzo-soprano Graham, who originated the role of Sister Helen in the San Francisco production, returns in the role of the convict’s mother.
“Getting into it from this role is almost like the other side of the coin,” said Graham. “Sister Helen has to keep it together and be strong for everybody. But Mama gets to wail and cry and holler. She gets to let it all hang out. In that way, it’s very cathartic.”
“It’s an opera about looking at the dark side of who we are, or who others are, and asking, ‘And now how do we relate?’’ DiDonato told The New York Times. “Now, how do we connect with each other? Do I dismiss you outright because of who you are, or what you did, or what you stand for? Or is there a way I can still open my heart and connect to you? It becomes a question of ultimately who is worthy of love and redemption.”
An A-List Audience
Franci Neely was in good company at the opening night event. Celebrities, including Peter Sarsgaard, Angela Bassett and husband Courtney B. Vance, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Hamm, Anne Hathaway, Patrick Stewart, Al Roker with wife Deborah Roberts, Marcia Gay Harden, and The View’s Whoopi Goldberg, were among those who attended the acclaimed production.
“Bringing [Dead Man Walking] to the Met was overdue, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, Peter Gelb, told The New York Times. “It symbolizes the efforts that we’re making to really transform the art form and to appeal to a much broader audience base that we have to appeal to for opera to succeed and ultimately survive.”
Heggie said, “My hope is that there will be a renewed appreciation for what it is to gather as a community for music, singing, and the incredible high-wire act of opera. I feel there will be a hunger for classics and special interest in pieces that feel current.”
Dead Man Walking was also turned into a movie in 1995. Susan Sarandon won an Academy Award for Best Actress for portraying Sister Helen Prejean, opposite Sean Penn as the condemned man.
But Franci Neely also hopes the shows at Lincoln Center will inspire more people to explore opera. She’d love people to set aside preconceived notions about opera. “I think people would be surprised at some of these new operas. At least at the Metropolitan Opera and Houston Grand Opera, there is a lot of commissioning of new work with very current, timely themes,” she says. “That’s attracting young people, diverse people, people who don’t necessarily have any track record with the opera.”
Neely encourages anyone unsure about attending an opera to “let yourself go and just experience something and be open to it. From teary operas to really funny operas — and there are some — go to the opera. Give it a try. Don’t be intimidated.”
Franci Neely’s Friendship With Jake Heggie
Neely is an ardent supporter of community, arts, and fundraising. She’s also a longtime friend of Heggie’s. “I have been to several of his openings,” she says. “He is an amazing guy.” Indeed, Neely was at the opening of Heggie’s Moby-Dick when it debuted at the Dallas Opera in April 2010. She’ll also attend the world premiere of Heggie’s newest opera, Intelligence.
Neely first met Heggie when he was working on an opera commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, where she was on the board. Neely says, “He’s very dear to me. Over the years, we’ve become closer.” Heggie and his husband, Curt Branom, a musical theater talent, have stayed with Neely in Houston and Nantucket, Massachusetts. “They’re both great,” she enthuses.
According to Franci Neely, all the praise for Heggie’s production at the Met is well deserved. “’The first time I saw Dead Man Walking, it was incredibly touching. It presents the arguments on both sides, for and against capital punishment, for and against the death penalty. And it’s a brilliantly moving work,” she says.
