Kelley Rourke is a librettist, translator and dramaturg. 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 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 is artistic advisor for Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative (AOI) and resident dramaturg for The Glimmerglass Festival. She has served as mentor for Seattle Opera’s Creation Lab 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 and Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process Certification Program.