Brokeback Mountain: The Opera

According to AP News, Brokeback Mountain, the story by Annie Proulx that became the inspiration for an Oscar-winning film, is to be made into an opera. Charles Wuorinen will compose the opera based on the 1997 short story for The New York City Opera.

The opera version of "Brokeback Mountain," is scheduled to premiere in spring 2013.

Brokeback Mountain is about two cowboys who begin an affair when they meet on a mountain in 1963.

The 2005 film version starred Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger, and won three Academy Awards.

The company said Wuorinen had accepted an invitation to compose the opera, which will be his second world premiere at City Opera.

Reportedly, Wuorinen is very excited about the project, "Ever since encountering Annie Proulx's extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it. . . . It gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so."

Wuorinen also composed an adaptation of a Salman Rushdie novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, which premiered in 2004.