Gene Scheer’s work is noted for its scope and versatility. With composer Jake Heggie, he has collaborated on the critically acclaimed 2010 Dallas Opera world premiere, Moby-Dick, Three Decembers, the lyric drama To Hell and Back and Camille Claudel: Into the fire, a song cycle and an operatic adaptation of It’s a Wonderful Life in December 2016 for the Houston Grand Opera.

Mr. Scheer worked as librettist with Tobias Picker on An American Tragedy, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 2005. Other collaborations include the lyrics for Wynton Marsalis’s It Never Goes Away, featured in Mr. Marsalis’s work Congo Square and the oratorio August 4, 1964, for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra with composer Steven Stucky. The work was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for best classical composition. In 2015, Mr. Scheer collaborated with Joby Talbot on the opera Everest, based on the doomed 1996 Everest expedition and 1ith Jennifer Higdon on an operatic adaptation of Cold Mountain, which premiered in the summer of 2015 at The Santa Fe Opera. This work won the International Opera award, presented in London, for the best World premiere in 2015 and was nominated for a Grammy for best classical composition.