The opera also includes text by John Bunyan (Beth's setting of The Pilgrim's Progress), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Dr. Bhaer sings "Kennst du das Land" from Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship), and Alcott herself (an excerpt of one of her thrillers at the beginning of act 2, which is spoken and mostly omitted on the audio recording).
[1] The success of this first production prompted Gockley to pronounce it "destined to be an American classic" and scheduled the opera for a mainstage premiere of ten performances in March 2000 — making it the first of HGO's twenty-some commissions to be so revived.
[2] In 2017, Adamo's Little Women saw the big stage again in Houston for the first time since the televised production by the HGO in 2001.
[3] In 2022, the UK premiere of Little Women was staged by Opera Holland Park, directed by Ella Marchment and conducted by Sian Edwards.
[4][5] While some critics have argued that the score's reach exceeds its grasp – Opera News suggests that "the nontonal pages never quite mesh with the arias' flights of aching, Bernsteinian lyricism" – critical consensus has largely followed that of John Rockwell of The New York Times, who, on the occasion of the March 2003 New York City Opera premiere, called Little Women a "masterpiece".