The Creators of ‘Grounded’ Discuss Writing for the Met Opera

Allow the creators of opera some grace.

Composers, librettists and their colleagues put years of work into something that, if they are lucky, gets a workshop performance or two before arriving onstage. If there is a revival — never a given in opera — they have an opportunity to make revisions.

This process can be brutal for artists. And it’s not the usual one for the composer Jeanine Tesori and the playwright George Brant, the creators of “Grounded,” which opens the Metropolitan Opera’s season on Sept. 23.

Tesori was written operas before, but she and Brant are more often animals of the traditional theater and the Broadway musical, environments where constant revisions responding to workshops, rehearsals and preview performances are the norm. Operas are also revised until the last possible moment, but they are never given the luxurious feedback that creators get in theater.

“In the theatrical space, the audience is part of the process,” said Tesori, the Tony Award-winning composer of the shows “Kimberly Akimbo,” “Fun Home” and “Caroline, or Change.” She learned from George C. Wolfe, the decorated playwright and director, “that the audience is your final scene partner.”

“I wish I were one of those artists who really knows what they have, but I just don’t,” she said. “So, I feel like I’m still getting to know what ‘Grounded’ is.”