14 Facts About Adam Guettel

Adam Guettel is an American composer-lyricist of musical theater and opera.

Adam Guettel performed as a boy soprano soloist in operas including Pelleas et Melisande and The Magic Flute, both at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Opera, and in another production of Pelleas with the Santa Fe Opera.

Adam Guettel was slated to play Amahl in the film remake of Gian Carlo Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors".

Adam Guettel later claimed that he ended his career as a boy soprano at age 13, by faking that his voice was changing; he turned to music composition soon afterward.

Adam Guettel attended Phillips Exeter Academy, School Year Abroad, Interlochen Center for the Arts and graduated from Yale University in 1987.

Adam Guettel's music was almost immediately characterized by its complexity and chromaticism.

Adam Guettel contributed original scores to several documentary films, including Arguing the World and Jack: The Last Kennedy Film.

Adam Guettel spent much of the period from 2005 to 2007 working on a musical adaptation of The Princess Bride with original screenwriter William Goldman.

The project was abandoned when Goldman reportedly demanded 75 percent of the author's share, even though Adam Guettel was writing both the music and the lyrics.

In summer 2007, Adam Guettel composed incidental music for a production of Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya at the Intiman Playhouse in Seattle, Washington.

Adam Guettel has led such classes at DePauw University, DePaul University, New York University, Pace University, Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Emerson College, Elon University, The Boston Conservatory, Southern Methodist University, Syracuse University, Wagner College and many others.

Adam Guettel received an honorary doctorate from Lehman College in 2007.

Adam Guettel is the son of composer, author and Juilliard School chairman Mary Rodgers, who died on June 26,2014, and grandson of legendary musical theater composer Richard Rodgers.

Adam Guettel's father, Henry Guettel, was a film executive and was the executive director of the Theatre Development Fund.