ABSTRACT
Ned Rorem, the Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer and author of twelve books, including e Paris Diary and e Nantucket Diary, was one of the rst and has remained the bestknown of openly homosexual gures in the world of music. His most recent book is Settling the Score: Essays on Music1 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988). e following conversation, which focuses on opera and homosexuality, began in Rorem’s living room in New York City on February 15, 1988, and was completed by correspondence in mid-1989. Entitled “Homosexuality and Music III” (following conversations on homosexuality and music with Philip Brett and George Heymont), it was published in my Homosexuality as Behavior and Identity: Dialogues of the Sexual Revolution, Volume II.2 A specially abridged version appeared in Opera Monthly.3
