The odds of a new opera lasting beyond a single production are long. Jake Heggie defied them with his first full composition, an adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean’s best-selling book Dead Man Walking, which has been seen in close to 50 productions worldwide since premiering in San Francisco in 2000.

In conjunction with Dead Man Walking’s debut in Kansas City – in four performances at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts – Heggie joins award-winning librettist and longtime collaborator Gene Scheer in a discussion of the provocative work and an examination of contemporary opera.