Based on Mary Shelley's novel of the same title, the opera/melodrama Frankenstein was begun in 1995 and completed in 1999.

The work is not so much a horror story as a tragedy, and the score — although it contains many episodes that might well jolt an audience — is by and large modal in construction and lyrical in nature. The liibretto, which features a psychological interpretation of the title character not typically addressed in cinematic treatments, is by the prolific poet and playwright Ben Ohmart.

Drawing as much upon James Wierzbicki's service in  '60s garage bands as his status as a scholar of early 18th-century theater music, this rock 'n' roll-flavored original performing edition of  John Gay's 1728 The Beggar's Opera was commissioned by Washington University and produced in the school's Edison Theater in the spring of 1994.

The director for Washington University's 1994 production of The Beggar's Opera was Jeffrey Matthews. The music was designed for a complex MIDI set-up with live electronic keyboard embellishments added by the composer-conductor. Discs containing the MIDI files and printed versions of the choral arrangements are available upon request. A cassette recording was made for sale during intermissions; if any cassettes are still available, they can be had by writing to the Washington University Performing Arts department, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, or by calling the department at (314) 935-4059.

Started in 1994 and now about two-thirds completed, Les parents terribles ("The Terrible Parents") is a three-act opera based on Jean Cocteau's play of the same title. The librettist/translator is British director-writer Michael Fry, with whom Wierzbicki previously collaborated on Nicholas Dear's The Art of Success and George Bernard Shaw's Candida. The score — generally acidulous yet not without its lyrical moments — is for soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, bass and chamber orchestra.

Inspired by a legalistic experience of byzantine complexity and monumental stupidity, James Wierzbicki set out early in 2000 to create an arguably comic opera based on Franz Kafka's 1925 novel The Trial. Conceived as a grandly choral work and set to Wierzbicki's own libretto, only the prelude and part of the first scene of The Trial have thus far been written.