Normally, I would make some kind of singing cowboys joke right here, but given the recent death of Heath Ledger in his Lower East Side apartment, this news carries significantly more weight in New York City. The New York City Opera announced today that Annie Proulx's short story chronicling the love affair between two cowboys in Iowa, made into a major motion picture starring Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, will receive the most royal treatment New York can give. Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Charles Wuorinen has been given the task of adapting the story. In an official statement, Wuorinen said , "Ever since encountering Annie Proulx's extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it." The opera will not premiere until the projected year of 2013, but good things come to those who wait, right?