The first rule of grand opera is that the plot should concern a woman of loose morals; this opera gives us a nun. Grand opera normally culminates in the tragic and untimely death of the heroine; "Dead Man Walking" serves up a dead man. Perhaps most important, the way to the heroine's inevitable and cathartic sacrifice should be strewn with lavish, colorful sets, exotic dance interludes and outrageous and expensive costumes. "Dead Man Walking" gives us gray prison interiors, grim fluorescent lights and dowdy, anonymous street clothes. Taken in the context of the operatic tradition, "Dead Man Walking" is either a misguided abuse of the genre or a radical reworking of operatic stagecraft.

The atmosphere at the War Memorial Opera House was charged at Saturday night's premiere, with a few dozen sign-waving death penalty opponents outside and a star-studded audience inside. Luminaries on hand for the show included Sister Helen Prejean (pronounced "pray-zhawn"), on whose memoir the opera is supposedly based, and Tim Robbins, on whose movie the opera is actually based. Also in attendance were actress Susan Sarandon, who portrayed Prejean in the movie; singing nun emeritus Julie Andrews, whose presence might have given lead mezzo-soprano Susan Graham an extra dose of the jitters; and Robin Williams, who, if he has not yet appeared on the screen in a nun's habit, is bound to do so sooner or later.

"Dead Man Walking's" journey into operatic no man's land is made all the more audacious by the fact that none of the principal creators had prior experience in the art. Thirty-nine-year-old composer Jake Heggie is known, by the few who know him, for his songs. Librettist Terence McNally earns his living on Broadway writing plays and musicals. And director Joe Mantello has acted in and directed plays and movies. With the unorthodox "Dead Man Walking," the trio made their operatic debuts. For the audience, this was akin to boarding an airplane piloted by three novices who decided, for their maiden voyage, to fly the plane backward and upside-down.

The once-removed source of this unlikely opera is Prejean's account of her work as spiritual advisor to two convicted murderers awaiting their executions in Louisiana's electric chair in the mid-1980s. In an adroit blend of memoir and advocacy, Prejean's book recounts her attempts to understand and humanize these men, her uphill battle to get them to accept responsibility for their crimes and achieve some kind of personal redemption, her part in the futile legal maneuverings to get their death sentences overturned, her witness of their executions and her wrenching encounters with the parents of both the victims and the condemned. Sprinkled throughout are legal, moral and biblical arguments against capital punishment that, together with her personal testimony, make the book a devastating indictment of the practice and of a society that permits it.

The book, movie and opera all make concerted efforts to convey the heinousness of the convicts' crimes. In perhaps its boldest dramatic innovation, the curtain rises on the crime scene, a midnight forest where two teenage lovers lie naked together after swimming in a nearby lake. They are set upon by the fictionalized Joseph de Rocher (baritone John Packard) and an accomplice. De Rocher rapes the girl, then stabs her to death to silence her screams. The accomplice shoots the teenage boy execution style in the back of the head.

Now playing: Read all the recent movie reviews by Salon's critics