‘Dead Man’ Gets a New Life

New American operas usually have a hard time making it, but Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking,” the story of Sister Helen Prejean and her ministry to death row inmates and their victims, set box office records at San Francisco Opera, which commissioned and premiered it two years ago. It’s since taken on its own life.

More than seven companies are lined up to present it, and first on the list is Opera Pacific, which presents the show beginning tonight.

But fans who arrive at the Orange County Performing Arts Center prepared to see the Joe Mantello-directed production that entranced San Francisco, selling a record 1,000 tickets a day at one point, are going to be surprised.

They will see several stars from the San Francisco cast--Kristin Jepson (alternating with Theodora Hanslowe) as Prejean, John Packard as the death row murderer Joseph DeRocher and Frederica von Stade as his mother--but Opera Pacific and six other “Dead Man Walking” tour stops will feature a brand-new production of the opera.

“There were so many companies right after the premiere that wanted to do the piece,” Heggie said. Some, including Houston Grand Opera and Opera Australia, will present the original production.

“But a lot of them have smaller stages and lack the facilities that the War Memorial Opera House [in San Francisco] has,” Heggie said. “Opera Pacific called them and said, ‘What if we work together and create a production that would be easier to tour and cost less?’ If they hadn’t been able to get together, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do this piece.”

Opera Pacific took the lead on the new production because it was first to commit to showing the new opera, even before it premiered.

“None of the artistic directorial team who created the San Francisco production were available,” said Opera Pacific artistic director John DeMain, so he turned to director Leonard Foglia and Foglia’s longtime set design collaborator, Michael McGarty, who created the 1996 Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Terrence McNally’s “Master Class.”

“I didn’t see the San Francisco Opera production and I didn’t want to,” Foglia said during a recent break in rehearsals. “I didn’t want to be influenced. I saw the movie, whenever it came out, and didn’t remember much of it. Then after all our decisions were made, I watched it again. The movie is wildly different. It’s real. We weren’t even close. That was good. It’s so far from it, anyone who looks at it will realize it’s not a representational thing.”

It could not be representational, Foglia felt, because “right off the bat, there’s a 13-minute scene in which [Prejean] is alone in a car, singing.

“Singing is an elevated form of art. But how do we elevate the scene? That became the issue in dealing with the entire opera. How to elevate it and give it size?

“That journey is the core of the opera: her journey to Christ, her journey to this man, to a calling she never expected that will ultimately change her life. My challenge was how to convey what’s going on in her mind. The only thing to do was to eliminate any sort of representational aspect of a car. Once you take it away, you’re free. If I had to see steering wheels on stage, I’d kill myself.”

Foglia and McGarty spent several months just listening to the opera to get the right images. “All of a sudden, you feel you crack it. You’re hit with a shape or an image or, in this case, towers and bridges, and you live with it for a while and if it still makes sense a month later, you stick with it.”

Instead of the large-scale, tiered set pieces that were moved on and off the large San Francisco Opera stage, “there are these four tower units and two bridges on a raked stage,” Heggie said. “It’s quite spectacular, brassy in color and very industrial looking. Joe’s set was gray, black and blue. Both directors made definite choices based on their interpretation of the music and tell the story clearly.”

To accommodate the various theaters this production will go to, Foglia and his partner had to create a core--the raked deck, the towers and bridges-- “that does not change. Our little platform stays consistent. The theater space will change around it.

“In general, I try to come up with something that’s a little abstract, more of a feeling. Walls aren’t my favorite things on stage. If I walk into a theater and see three walls and a sofa facing out--I want to kill myself. We go to the theater for more than that.”

But form follows function, he says. “No matter what I’m doing--play, musical or film--my job is storytelling, to make sure the story is told clearly. You’re taking people on the journey.”

Opera, in his view, adds some constraints. “Dead Man Walking” is the first one he’s directed.

“It’s already been decided what the emotional arc of the scene is by the music,” Foglia says. “It’s already been decided by the composer how a line is read, even to the point of whether it’s loud or soft. The line of the music has already dictated the emotion. All that doesn’t exist in a play. You just have words on a page, which can be played so many ways. I don’t have that kind of leeway here.

“So that’s the road map. But I didn’t feel stifled by that. I just accepted it. I took the point of inspiration from the music anyway. I’m actually having a ball.”

Heggie is delighted by both productions. “I think Lenny’s response to the score is extraordinary,” he said. “Joe Mantello’s [original production] was extraordinary, too, but different. Two very different, elaborate productions created within a relatively short period of time. I’m over the moon.”

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Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking,” Opera Pacific, conceived and directed by Leonard Foglia, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Sunday, 2 p.m., Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. $25-$175. (714) 556-2787.