Jake Heggie recalls that after “Dead Man Walking” premiered in San Francisco in 2000, his first opera was quickly taken up by other companies, but there was “not even a whisper of possibility” that the Metropolitan Opera might be interested.
When Anthony Davis' first opera, “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” was staged at New York City Opera in 1986 it was such a hit he says “audiences were around the block waiting to get in.” Yet it was ignored by the larger company right next door at Lincoln Center.
