Jake Heggie is that rare phenomenon, a contemporary composer whose operas, and especially Dead Man Walking, have become a part of the canon. What’s more, audiences enjoy his dramatically astute, lyrical, and emotionally rewarding works. A singer’s composer, Heggie often writes for his favorite voices, just one of the weapons in his musical armory.
Many living composers see their operas gather dust after a much-hyped premiere. Not Jake Heggie: Dead Man Walking—which opened the Metropolitan Opera’s 2023-24 season and heralded Heggie’s house debut—has received more than 75 productions worldwide since its San Francisco Opera premiere in 2000. Many of his other ten full-scale operas have been similarly successful, his lyrical and cinematographic style illuminating stories inspired by everything from classic novels to contentious issues like the death penalty.
Watch Jake Heggie's Musical America Awards interview
When creating a new opera, Heggie communicates daily with his librettist about characters, voice types, and architecture. “If the libretto doesn’t inspire music,” he says, “it’s not ready.” Heggie—63 and a long-time resident of San Francisco, where he lives with his husband, actor Curt Branom—also enjoys highly collaborative relationships with musicians. “Every singer is different and at different periods of their lives,” he says. “Writing for Flicka [Frederica von Stade] in the early 90s is very different from writing for Flicka in 2015.”
If a singer tells him, for example, that he or she can’t sing a certain vowel in a particular register, he adjusts the score. “I want singers to feel strong and empowered,” he says, “which is why I don’t micromanage them. I really want to know what they’re going to bring personally, artistically, and creatively to that role.”
Heggie often writes for mezzo-sopranos, who in his experience “tend to be a little more relaxed [than sopranos] because the pressure isn’t on them so much.” He recalls a Dead Man Walking rehearsal with mezzos Susan Graham and Kristine Jepson (who died in 2017). Both were both performing the role of Sister Helen Prejean.
During one powerful scene, Heggie had written music for Sister Helen in the passaggio (the transition area between vocal registers), with which both singers struggled. While Graham was “very diplomatic,” recalls Heggie, Jepson pushed the book aside and said “Heggie, it’s really uncomfortable and I need you to get your pen out of my crack.” All his singers now like to remind him not to put his pen in their vocal crack, he says, laughing.
Heggie grew up in Columbus, Ohio, one of four siblings. His father was an amateur jazz saxophonist and physician and his mother a nurse. His father, who committed suicide shortly before Heggie’s 11th birthday, passed on his love of pop and musical theater. Heggie studied piano and composition in Paris and at UCLA and toured as a pianist, but when focal dystonia struck, he took a marketing job at the San Francisco Opera. There he met renowned singers who championed his art songs (which now number in the hundreds) and was given a life-changing opportunity by general director Lotfi Mansouri, who asked him to write an opera for the company. Dead Man Walking was born.
Heggie is prolific: Intelligence—his most recent opera—is a Civil War story that premiered at Houston Grand Opera in 2023. The chamber and orchestral versions of Songs for Murdered Sisters (a collaboration with Margaret Atwood) has received premieres in recent years. Earth 2.0, with a libretto by novelist Anita Amirrezvani was premiered by Robert Spano and the Fort Worth Symphony this December 7.
In March 2025, the Met will present Moby-Dick, which has a libretto by Scheer, premiered at the Dallas Opera in 2010 and is dedicated to Stephen Sondheim. While best known for his operas, art songs, and other vocal works, Heggie’s catalogue also includes piano repertory and orchestral pieces such as The Elements, which he composed for Joshua Bell.
Since he first began composing, Heggie has written by hand and doesn’t anticipate ever using digital tools. He needs “a visceral connection with the page,” he says. “Music is very tactile to me. It’s like being a sculptor who lets their hand uncover a shape or structure.” Writing by hand also allows him “to really make a mess and then find my way out of the mess,” an essential part of his process. “Gene Scheer always says it’s like being in a completely pitch-dark room knowing that there’s a light switch somewhere,” he says.
Heggie encourages young composers to print out their scores and make corrections or add new ideas on paper, even when doing most of the composing on a computer. A score on a screen “is always going to look perfect” and will prohibit a composer from feeling truly connected to a project.
“Just do your best work and trust,” is Heggie’s advice. “Some things will disappear, and some things might last, but as long as you’re doing it for the right reason in the moment, sometimes that’s enough.”
He’s always hopeful that his work will move other people. “And when it actually does,” he says, “it’s just miraculous and extremely gratifying.” •
Vivien Schweitzer is a Jersey City-based writer and pianist who contributes to publications including The Economist, The New York Times, and The American Scholar. Her book, A Mad Love: An Introduction to Opera, was named one of The New Yorker’s Best Books We Read in 2021.
