When Dead Man Walking premiered in San Francisco nearly a quarter century ago, the death penalty was a hot-button issue. Did the topicality contribute to the success of the story of the murderer on Death Row and the nun who shepherds him to tardy contrition? Many thought so, but as Zachary Woolfe of The New York Times observed at the time of the opera’s tardy Met debut in 2023, the capital-punishment angle might not be such a selling point any more. Yet Dead Man Walking remains, by a wide margin, the most frequently produced new opera of the 21st century. So, was topicality ever really its secret sauce? A Silver Anniversary revival in San Francisco might be the perfect occasion to ponder the question. The production is Leonard Foglia’s sturdy original, conducted by Patrick Summer, who led the premiere. Susan Graham, Sister Helen’s first operatic avatar (following the Oscar-winning Susan Sarandon in the Oscar-nominated Tim Robbins movie) has graduated to the woebegone Mrs. DeRocher, the killer’s mother, whom she portrayed to acclaim in the hotshot Ivo van Hove’s high-tech Met premiere. Ryan McKinny, the condemned Joseph DeRocher of that production, reprises his starring role. Jamie Barton—a third charter member of the National Jake Heggie Regulars—is onboard as Sister Helen, whom she first made her own in Atlanta six years ago. As for the pacifist message, the way America is going, it’s growing more urgent by the hour. —Matthew Gurewitsch