Editing Ned Rorem (section)

===Operas===
{{further|Miss Julie (Rorem opera)|Our Town (opera)|label1=Miss Julie|label2=Our Town}}
{{external media
| topic  = Final aria-monologue from ''Our Town''
| video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9N2yGGbcac Performance] by [[Marnie Breckenridge]]
}}

Only two full-length operas were written by Rorem: ''Miss Julie'' (1965) and ''[[Our Town (opera)|Our Town]]'' (2005).{{sfn|Johnson|2014|p=93}} ''Miss Julie'' was not well-received; the music critic [[Harold C. Schonberg]] commented that his melodies were bland and lacked individuality.{{sfn|Lewis|2022}} Holmes explained that Rorem himself "contends that song specialists cannot automatically turn out good operas any more than opera composers can turn out true songs: a gift for tune and a gift for tragedy do not always join hands".{{sfn|Holmes|2002}} The opera's libretto was written by [[Kenward Elmslie]], itself based on the [[Miss Julie|play of the same name]] by [[August Strindberg]].{{sfn|Ewen|1982|p=542}} Rorem revised it for a more successful revival in 1979;{{sfn|McDonald|1989|p=11}} it was again revived again in 1994 at the [[Manhattan School of Music]] Opera.{{sfn|Holmes|Tommasini|McDonald|2003|loc=§ para 8}}

His second full-length opera, ''Our Town'', was written 40 years later on the [[Our Town|play of the same name]] by [[Thornton Wilder]].{{sfn|Johnson|2014|p=93}} It received a successful 2006 premiere at the [[Indiana University Opera Theater, Bloomington|Indiana University Opera Theater]] and was later performed at the [[Juilliard Opera Center]], New York (2008) and the Central City Opera, Denver (2013).{{sfn|Lewis|2022}} The music critic Joshua Barone noted that it is "a tastefully restrained echo of the play's text that has found a home on smaller stages but deserves bigger ones".{{sfn|Barone|2022}} The play's already small-scale set and condense narrative was matched by Rorem's setting as a [[chamber opera]] and Johnson explained that "the economy of resources may well be the key to the opera's mobility and then its success".{{sfn|Johnson|2014|p=93}} The work's final monologue-aria from the character Emily Webb is particularly well-regarded and often standard repertoire for soprano singers.{{sfn|Smith|2013}}

Throughout his career Rorem wrote some six small one-act operas, many of which do not fit squarely into the genre.{{sfn|Holmes|2002}} The first of these was ''A Childhood Miracle'' of 1951, which had to wait three years for its premiere in New York 1955.{{sfn|Ewen|1982|p=541}} Rorem wrote his own libretto for his 1958 opera based on Chaucer's "[[The Pardoner's Tale]]", ''The Robbers''.{{sfn|Holmes|2002|loc=§ "Works"}} His 1961 two-act opera ''The Anniversary'' was never performed.{{sfn|Holmes|Tommasini|McDonald|2003|loc=§ "Works"}} It included a libretto by Jascha Kessler and was, unusually for Rorem, based on the serialist [[tone row]] which he included on the [[title page]].{{sfn|Kessler|2003}} Rorem wrote the one-act ''[[Bertha (opera)|Bertha]]'' (1968) to a libretto by Kenneth Koch.{{sfn|Holmes|2002|loc=§ "Works"}} The same year he wrote the three-act ''Three Sisters who are Not Sisters'' (1971), his second collaboration with Stein as the librettist.{{sfn|Holmes|Tommasini|McDonald|2003|loc=§ "Works"}} The 1970s saw his two final short operas: ''Fables'' (1971), 5 brief scene based on [[La Fontaine's Fables|La Fontaine's ''Fables'']]; and ''Hearing'' (1976) on a libretto by Holmes based on Rorem's song cycles.{{sfn|Holmes|Tommasini|McDonald|2003|loc=§ "Works"}}