Goodman was born in
St. Paul, Minnesota, and attended and graduated from
Breck School. She studied English and American literature at
Harvard University, graduating with a
Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1980, and
Girton College, Cambridge, graduating with a further BA in 1982. and the
London Review of Books. She received her
Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree from the
Boston University School of Theology in 1997. She wrote the
libretti for the first two operas of
John Adams,
Nixon in China and
The Death of Klinghoffer. Goodman continued writing with Adams on his next opera,
Doctor Atomic, but withdrew from this project after a year. A decade after the eventual premiere of that opera, she wrote the text for a choral cantata by
Tarik O'Regan (
A Letter of Rights, 2015), commissioned as part of the celebrations for the 800th anniversary of
Magna Carta. In 2017,
NYRB published Goodman's texts for
Nixon and
Klinghoffer, along with her translation of the libretto for
The Magic Flute, as the collection
History is Our Mother: Three Libretti, with an introduction by James Williams. She was raised as a
Reform Jew, and converted to Christianity as an adult, in 1989. ==References==