A writer of art songs and emotive off-Broadway musicals ( " Dream True , " " My Life With Albertine " ) , as well as operas distilling the melodic essences of epic stories ( " The Grapes of Wrath , " the forthcoming " Garden of the Finzi-Continis " ) , the 53-year-old Gordon has shown over the course of his career that he 's anything but cut from a mold .