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Sister Helen Prejean softly sings some of her favorite phrases from Jake Hegge's opera "Dead Man Walking" as she talks about why she loves his setting of her 1993 best-selling book.

Prejean's work with death-row inmates and the ways it has been a transforming experience for her led to the book, which inspired the 1995 movie with Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. But she believes the opera might be the most powerful expression of her feelings because, she says, "music can reach us in ways and in places that words cannot."

Hegge was commissioned to write the opera by San Francisco Opera, which gave the world premiere four years ago. Pittsburgh Opera's presentation, starting Saturday night, will be the seventh production of the surprise operatic hit.

The composer's musical career began in performance as a pianist, but a hand injury forced him to change directions. After writing many songs that found favor with the world's top operatic singers, Hegge wrote "Dead Man Walking" as his first opera. It is the rarest of creations -- a contemporary opera with legs.

The opera is based on Prejean's work as spiritual counselor to Joseph De Rocher and begins with the brutal murder and rape that led to his death sentence. There's no doubt about his guilt for the audience, although he lies and asserts his innocence until near the end of the opera, when he also admits his humiliation by another woman.

"The reason this opera is so powerful and successful," says John Mauceri, Pittsburgh Opera music director, "is that it taps into the fundamental mythic storytelling of humanity. What Jake and, equally, his librettist (Terence McNally) have done is create a ritual drama that is about the male and female components -- it is a rescue opera in which a woman's love saves a man."

Mauceri compares "Dead Man Walking" to the operas "Fidelio" and "Turandot," adding that the gender roles are reversed in Puccini's opera, where princess Turandot is the hurtful wounded person who is rescued by a man's love.

Music adds to the impact and structure of storytelling, Mauceri says, which is why Greek drama was sung not spoken.

"In this case, the opera begins with a brutal murder followed by an unaccompanied hymn," he says. "It ends with the brutal -- if you want to say -- execution, followed by a hymn. It's the structure, the process, we go through in the theater. It contributes to the catharsis that makes the opera an exhilarating, not a depressing, experience."

Soprano Kristine Jepson, who will portray Prejean at the Benedum Center, says that meeting the nun was helpful to her. "But I can't say I know Sister Helen very well, not like my relationship with Jake." Jepson read the book and saw the movie, but knows her job is not to re-create a reality, but to be the character as presented in the opera.

Jepson says she's never been in favor of the death penalty "because it's become evident that too many mistakes are made for an irrevocable punishment. DNA has proven over and over that many men, especially, have been sent to their death for no reason. But I don't think I was ever an 'eye for an eye' person. I don't think we have the right to make that decision."

Prejean is writing a new book, with the working title "Loss of Innocence," that will report on her experience with innocent people who have been executed. "Dead Man Walking" confronts the death penalty where the "guilty" party is unquestionably guilty.

For all the impact of Prejean's first book and subsequent movie, Mauceri says that when "Dead Man Walking" became "ritual theater, it became bigger, simpler and much more profound because it is eternal."

Singer finds lead role physically taxing

Actors and singers love to play villains, but John Packard faces extra demands in performing the murderer Joseph De Rocher in Jake Hegge's opera "Dead Man Walking."

His preparation -- apart from learning his part -- included reading Sister Helen Prejean's book, seeing the movie several times and making a field trip to death row at Angola prison, which he found an exhausting experience.

He knows he's extremely lucky to "own" the title role in a popular opera; Pittsburgh will be his seventh production of the physically demanding part.

"You have to be in shape because of two things -- the pushup scene and the rape scene," Packard says.

Contemporary directors no longer favor singers with stationary placement at the front of the stage. But Packard sings while doing 39 pushups, which he says "isn't so bad if you're in shape." He also needs the control that comes from strength to be gentle with colleagues while appearing violent in the rape scene.

"I was kind of a body builder before I became an opera singer," he says. When he got back into serious workouts in preparing for this role, he lost 15 pounds and his waist went from 34 inches to 31. After he rented equipment for a while, his wife surprised him with the gift of a total gym.

"Now I have no excuse for being out of shape," he says.

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