An American Tragedy is an opera in two acts composed by Tobias Picker, with a libretto by Gene Scheer.

This was Picker's fourth opera, written four years after the debut of Thérèse Raquin (also composed with Scheer).

[1][2] It received its West Coast premiere by the Santa Monica College Opera Theater in 2010,[3] and was produced at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2014.

[8] "Based on a true story, Theodore Dreiser's novel An American Tragedy is one literature's great, universal subjects.

The heart-breaking hand-written letters of Grace Brown, the tragic real life factory worker Dreiser brings us so painfully close to, inspired me to give them song as they are projected onto the stage in all their endless optimism and sorrow.