A poster of movie "Brokeback Mountain"

New York City Opera has commissioned American composer Charles Wuorinen to write an opera based on Annie Proulx’s short story "Brokeback Mountain," a love story about two US ranch-hands that won three Oscars when it was turned into a movie.

The opera house's spokesman Gerard Mortier said in a statement on Sunday that Wuorinen had accepted an invitation to compose an opera of the short story. It is slated to premiere during City Opera's 2013 spring season.

This would mark New Yorker Wuorinen's second world premiere at City Opera. He also composed "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," an adaptation of a Salman Rushdie novel which opened in 2004.

"Ever since encountering Annie Proulx's extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it, and it gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so," Wuorinen, 70, said in a statement.

"Brokeback Mountain" is the story of two men who meet and fall in love on the fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming in 1963 with their complex relationship lasting 20 years.

The story was made into a film in 2005 by Taiwanese director Ang Lee which won three Oscars. The late Australian actor Heath Ledger, who died in January this year of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs at the age of 28, was nominated for an Oscar for his role.