The libretto of this opera was adapted by John Adams and Peter Sellars from a South Indian folktale and poems translated by A.K. Ramanujan. A Flowering Tree premiered in the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna in 2006. Critics described it as ''...opulent, dreamlike, fiercely lyrical, at times shadowy and strange'' (The New Yorker) and ''...some of the most ravishingly beautiful passages of music that Adams has yet composed'' (Daily Telegraph).