Dead Man Walking

Marking its ENO debut in the 2025/26 season—and celebrating its 25th anniversary—Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s gripping operatic drama arrives in a powerful new production. Dead Man Walking follows the harrowing final days of a death row inmate, exposing a raw, emotional journey that tests the limits of justice, faith, and redemption. Joseph De Rocher awaits execution by lethal injection for the brutal murder of two teenagers. He insists on his innocence, even as Sister Helen Prejean, a nun offering him spiritual counsel, grapples with her own crisis of belief. Torn between compassion for a condemned man and the unbearable grief of the victims' families, Sister Helen seeks truth and accountability in a story that confronts the deepest questions of forgiveness, guilt, and human dignity. Can Sister Helen uncover the truth the families need? Or will Joseph carry his secret to the grave?