Kelley Rourke
Kelley Rourke is a librettist, translator, and dramaturg. Libretti include Eat the Document, Right Now, Lucy, and Stay (John Glover); The Beekeeper (Wang Lu); The Emissary (Kenji Oh); Wilde Tales and And Still We Dream (Laura Karpman); The Jungle Book (Kamala Sankaram); and Odyssey and Robin Hood (Ben Moore).
Her English adaptations of canonic operas have been hailed as “crackingly witty” (The Independent, London) and “remarkably well wedded to the music” (New York Times). Her work has been commissioned and performed by the Metropolitan Opera, English National Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Boston Lyric Opera, Seattle Opera, American Composers Orchestra, Minnesota Opera, Carnegie Hall, Met LiveArts, Opera Parallèle, Houston Grand Opera, and Chicago Opera Theater, among others.
Kelley is resident dramaturg for The Glimmerglass Festival and Artistic Advisor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative.