Review: ‘Dead Man Walking’ Returns During a New National Moment

Jamie Barton as Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s ‘Dead Man Walking.’ (Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera)

For the past week, the U.S. government has demanded that Americans support a blatant contradiction: to honor the memory of a right-wing icon who promoted free speech by attacking and firing those who exercise their right to free speech .

That’s the TLDR of it, anyway — I’m glossing over all the parts about bullets etched with furry lingo , comparisons between abortion and the holocaust , a future assassin cosplaying as Pepe the Frog , the ongoing demonization of trans people , the qualifications of Black women and an encroaching takeover of American news media by a thin-skinned authoritarian president .

The central contradiction of the opera