George Saunders on the Met's Opera of His LINCOLN IN THE BARDO

George Saunders described the experience of watching his novel Lincoln in the Bardo transformed into an opera at the Metropolitan Opera during a recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Speaking with host Seth Meyers, Saunders discussed the scale and visual impact of seeing the story staged, characterizing the production as a spectacle in conversation on the show.

Saunders is the author of Lincoln in the Bardo, the novel that served as the basis for the Met's opera adaptation. During the appearance, he walked Meyers through his original process of creating the book before shifting into how it felt to see that material reimagined for the operatic stage.

The conversation also moved beyond the opera adaptation into Saunders' other recent writing. He discussed penning a Substack essay focused on artificial intelligence, giving viewers a sense of the range of subjects currently occupying his attention outside of his fiction work.

Saunders used the segment to connect his literary roots to this new operatic chapter, noting the unusual path a novel takes in becoming a full-scale Met production. The appearance offered a glimpse into how a writer reacts to watching characters and scenes he first imagined on the page appear in costume and song on one of opera's largest stages.