By Dwight Casimere
Metropolitan Opera’s season opening production Grounded breaks new territory and sets the stage for the next generation of opera with a sensational new production. With a multi-media production staged by Tony Award-winners Jeanine Tesori and Michael Mayer the opera is in two acts with libretto by George Brant, based on his hit play, Grounded.
With spirited conducting from Met Opera Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Grounded is a fast-paced journey into the world of a female ‘Top Gun’ fighter pilot, Jess, sung by rising mezzo-soprano star Emily D’Angelo, a Graduate of the Met’s Lindermann Young Artist Development Program, and tenor Ben Bliss, another Lindermann Graduate, who plays Eric, the Wyoming rancher who sweeps Beth off her feet, Grounded uses high tech visuals, explosive dance routines and a flashy music score to deliver a story of love and conflict that is ripped from today’s headlines.
Jess is a hotshot fighter pilot who is pulled from the cockpit of her beloved F-16 fighter jet when she gets pregnant and is put behind the computerized controls of a missile-bearing Reaper, used to liquidate targets thousands of miles away. The irony of wiping out enemy forces from the comfort of her Lay-Z-Boy raises more than a casual moral question. There is also her struggle to balance career and a young family that further confounds her personal journey into her inner conflicts.
Grounded is both challenging and exciting to watch. It reflects the realities of military life today and takes the viewer on a deep dive into the conflicted world of women who are serving our country in the modern military. For more, visit metopera.org and fandango.com.
