[2] In 2014, the Metropolitan Opera had contracted Jeanine Tesori to compose new work but had not agreed on a suitable subject, until the Met's dramaturg, Paul Cremo, attended a performance of Brant's play at New York's tiny Walkerspace Theater.

[10] The opera features the story of an American F-16 pilot who is grounded due to pregnancy after a brief relationship while on leave with a rancher from Wyoming.

Despite appeals from her Commander that she is invaluable to the squadron, she accepts the status DNIF, or "Duty Not Including Flying", and she and Eric soon welcome their daughter, Sam.

Longing for the sky, Jess returns to her Commander, who, instead of sending her back to her beloved F-16, assigns her to pilot drones remotely, from a trailer near Las Vegas.

In the dressing room, Jess fixates on who might be watching them through the mirror or security cameras on the wall – and suddenly she is back in the trailer, only this time, her screen shows dying American soldiers.

On the one-year anniversary of Jess' arrival in the trailer, the Commander assigns her a high-profile mission: track the car suspected to hold target number two on the kill list, and once he steps out and is identified, strike.

Jess' relentless pursuit of her target and the intense strain of the mission blur the already faint lines between war and her personal life; she believes a sleeping Sam to be dead, refuses to take off her flight suit after work, and mentally splits into herself and a split personality named "Also Jess" during sex with Eric.

[12] Zachary Woolfe of the New York Times praised Emily D'Angelo in the lead role as the pilot Jess as "perfectly cast", though he also wrote there was a lack of chemistry between her and her onstage husband Eric, performed by an "affable" Joseph Dennis.

He also disagreed with Peter Gelb's assertion that Grounded is "an antiwar opera", instead stating "the piece seems to say that war is OK; there are just better and worse – more and less authentic – ways of waging it.

"[9] In a review for the Washington Post, Michael Brodeur praised the "surprising delicacy and daring" of Tesori's score and the individual performances of the singers, but criticized elements of the adaption of Brant's play.

[13] Writing in the Washington Classical Review, Charles T. Downey called Tesori's music "disappointingly thin and lackluster", with the exception of the male chorus.

Downey praised Emily D'Angelo as "radiant", and also drew positive attention to Willa Cook as Jess's young daughter Sam.

[14] Kate Wingfield was more positive in her four-star review for Metro Weekly, stating that, despite issues with the adaption and libretto, "the production is driven by a wonderfully cohesive cast".

[15] In a review for BroadwayWorld, David Friscic was appreciative of Tesori's music, calling it "alternately sweeping, plaintive, elegiac, whimsical, satiric, mocking, poetic or emphatic".

Friscic reserved the highest praise for lead Emily D'Angelo, referring to her "breathtaking vocal control and tone".

[18] Page Six of the New York Post reported that Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera's director, criticised Woolfe's review at a private function.

[20] In Bachtrack, Kevin W Ng commented in his two star review that the Met's orchestra and chorus were "on peak form", but felt that the score was "unmemorable at best", and that it "drags".

Ng felt that the "sheer American jingoism of the piece" was "grating", commenting on lines such as "Boom goes Baghdad" in the context of the original production's sponsorship by General Dynamics.

He found Ben Bliss "exquisite" as Eric and Ellie Dehn "luscious and radiant" as Jess' alter ego.