The world premiere took place on May 31, 2012, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles with Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic[1] who also premiered the staged version on March 7, 2013, at the same venue.

[1][2] The libretto by Peter Sellars draws its texts from the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible and from Rosario Castellanos, Rubén Darío, Dorothy Day, Louise Erdrich, Hildegard von Bingen, June Jordan, and Primo Levi.

[8] Andrew Clements of The Guardian called the score "easily the finest thing [Adams] has composed in more than two decades".

[1][9][10] The Passover Aria is often celebrated by critics, and has been described by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times as "stunning exquisiteness".

Comparing the piece to Adams' opera El Niño, Zachary Woolfe of The New York Times called The Gospel According to the Other Mary "more crowded and less coherent",[1] and the piece has been described as having dramaturgical flaws by multiple critics.