The novel was adapted into an opera by Paula M. Kimper, to a libretto by Wende Persons. It debuted at the Lincoln Center Festival in 1998, and has been revived several times since. Alma Routsong gave her approval to the project shortly before her death, but did not survive to hear more than a few songs from the score performed privately. The idea for the opera originated with Persons's crush on a soprano in 1981, when Persons wrote the music to impress her. When she was rejected, she kept the work until she met Kimper and they both revived its creation in 1989.