The Singing Nun passed through Austin this week — no, not that one — rather Sister Helen Prejean, author of the 1993 best seller Dead Man Walking and legendary for her campaign against capital punishment. Prejean was in town for a UT symposium on the opera adaptation of her book, to be presented by Austin Lyric Opera (www.austinlyricopera.org) beginning Jan. 10. She appeared with composer Jake Heggie Monday night at the LBJ Auditorium, and they joked that as he composed the opera, Prejean had indeed sent him some tapes of her own singing — “and he rejected them all,” she laughed. Despite the opera’s somber subject, Heggie said Prejean’s very first question to him was, “Now Jake, you don’t write any of that atonal stuff, do you? We want to come out of the theatre humming some tunes.”
Prejean described the opera, like the 1995 film adaptation starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, as another form of “witness” in her international campaign against executions. She described capital punishment as “sanctioning vengeance as a community [and] imitating those who have committed violence.” Comparing the widespread “unreflective” support for capital punishment with the “war against terrorism” and against Iraq, she described the contemporary “working paradigm: define somebody as the enemy, dehumanize and demonize them, and kill them.” Asked afterward if she believes abolitionists are currently making any headway, she said, “Right now the U.S. is pretty locked in on executions — and with this Iraq war brewing, things are likely to get worse.”
This article appears in December 13 • 2002.
