An Evening With Gene Scheer: Adapting Mammoth American Novels for the Opera

Celebrated librettist Gene Scheer and Georgetown Professor and NPR book critic Maureen Corrigan will be in conversation about tackling literary adaptation and the contemporary transformation of opera. This event is open to anyone interested in music, writing, performance and the vagaries of a career. (Gene did not start out as a librettist.) And, if you've never seen an opera, find out what you're missing.

Gene Scheer is an acclaimed American librettist known for his versatility and his emotionally resonant texts – praised by audiences, critics, and collaborators alike.

He is principally known for his work on 12 full-length operas, including high-profile collaborations with composer Jake Heggie (Moby‑Dick, Three Decembers, It’s a Wonderful Life, Intelligence, If I Were You, Two Remain), Tobias Picker (Thérèse Raquin, An American Tragedy), Joby Talbot (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Everest), and Jennifer Higdon (Cold Mountain).

Cold Mountain, which premiered at Santa Fe Opera in 2015, won the International Opera Award for Best World Premiere and was nominated for a Grammy in Best Classical Composition. Scheer also earned a 2012 Grammy nomination for the oratorio August 4, 1964, composed by Steven Stucky and recorded by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden.

This past year has marked a remarkable time for Scheer: Moby‑Dick premiered at the Metropolitan Opera on March 3rd, praised by The New York Times as “an economical wonder” for its libretto. This fall, the Met opened its 2025–26 season with the world premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a new opera created with composer Mason Bates, which was directed by Bartlett Sher and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The opera, praised as a “Knock-out” buy the Financial Times and “impressive” by the New York Review of Books was a great hit with audiences and will be brought back by popular demand for four more performances at the Met in February.

Scheer’s opera Intelligence with Jake Heggie receives a new production at Virginia Opera, as well as a world premiere album release through a new partnership between Houston Grand Opera and the LSO Live label – recently nominated for Best Opera Recording at the 2026 Grammy® Awards.

Also a composer in his own right, Mr. Scheer has written a number of songs for singers such as Renée Fleming, Joyce DiDonato, Sylvia McNair, Stephanie Blythe, Jennifer Larmore, Denyce Graves, Lucas Meachem, and Nathan Gunn. His song “American Anthem,” performed by Norah Jones, was featured in Ken Burns’ Emmy-winning PBS documentary The War.

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Host or Publisher Georgetown University Department of English