Kelley Rourke is a librettist, translator and dramaturg. She has collaborated with composers including John Glover, Laura Karpman, Ben Moore, Kenji Oh, Zach Redler, Kamala Sankaram, Christopher Tin, and Wang Lu on new operas. Her modern English adaptations of numerous standard and not-so-standard operas have been hailed as “crackingly witty” (The Independent, London) and “remarkably well wedded to the music and versification in arias” (New York Times). She has written libretti for four youth operas, with performances across the country. She is the 2024 recipient of OPERA America’s Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, and she has received two commissioning grants from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Kelley’s work has been commissioned and performed by the Metropolitan Opera; Washington National Opera; English National Opera; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Welsh National Opera; Opera Australia; The Glimmerglass Festival; Chicago Opera Theater; Opera Parallèle; American Composers Orchestra; Opera Theatre of Saint Louis; Boston Lyric Opera; Young People’s Chorus of NYC; Seattle Opera; Minnesota Opera; Carnegie Hall; Urban Arias; Met LiveArts; Houston Grand Opera’s HGOco; San Francisco Conservatory; Milwaukee Opera Theatre; Florentine Opera; American Opera Projects; Atlanta Opera; Kentucky Opera; Walnut Hill School for the Arts; Lyric Opera of Kansas City; On Site Opera; and Nautilus Music-Theater, among others.

Kelley is resident dramaturg for The Glimmerglass Festival and a member of the board of Cherry Valley Artworks. She has served as artistic advisor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative (AOI); mentor for Seattle Opera’s Creation Lab, Pacific Opera Victoria’s Opera Sprouts and AOI; and as dramaturg for Chicago Opera Theater’s Vanguard Initiative. She has been engaged as a guest lecturer at Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and University of Maryland College Park. She was founding editor of Opera America magazine and a contributor to the New Grove Dictionary of American Music.

Kelley holds degrees in piano performance and arts management. She is an alumna of New Dramatists’ Composer-Librettist Studio, Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process Certification Program, and Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener Program. Her work as a collaborative writer is supported and informed by more than two decades of studying, practicing and teaching yoga and mindfulness. She was a co-developer/trainer for a wellness curriculum that has been implemented in public school districts across the country.

Kelley’s 2026-2027 season includes the world premieres of A River Runs Through It (Opera Montana) and O’Keeffe: Kiss the Sky (Washington National Opera); new adaptations of Così fan tutte (The Glimmerglass Festival), Idomeneo (Washington National Opera), Happy End (NY touring production), and Pagliacci (Brew City Opera); revivals of Odyssey (Welsh National Opera, National Youth Opera Academy, Washington National Opera) and Robin Hood (Kentucky Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival); and recording releases of Eat the Document and Odyssey.