Opera-lovers understand that the creation of an opera is usually a collaborative effort, with a librettist writing the words and a composer writing the music (Wagner, who did it all himself, is an exception). But the actual nuts and bolts of the process is less well understood. That makes a new web post by a librettist especially interesting. Check it out to see how detailed the process is. The finished work will be onstage at Santa Fe in the summer of 2009.