GROUNDED

Emily D’Angelo stars in Tony Award–winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s powerful new opera

Two-time Tony Award–winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s powerful new opera GROUNDED, commissioned by the Met and based on librettist George Brant’s acclaimed play, wrestles with the ethical quandaries and psychological toll of 21st-century warfare. Mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, for whom Tesori wrote the leading role, portrays Jess, a hot-shot fighter pilot whose unplanned pregnancy takes her out of the cockpit and lands her in Las Vegas, operating a Reaper drone halfway around the world. As she adjusts to this new way of doing battle, she struggles to balance life as a wife to Eric and mother to their daughter, Sam, and fights to maintain her sanity and moral compass at work where she is called to rain down death remotely. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium, leading a cast that also features tenor Ben Bliss as the Wyoming rancher who sweeps Jess off her feet. Michael Mayer’s high-tech staging, using a vast array of LED screens, presents a variety of perspectives on the action, including the drone’s predatory view from high above.

“Emily D’Angelo … turns the evening into compelling theatre. The Canadian mezzo-soprano may only be thirty years old but already has the intelligence, charisma and confidence needed to pull off opening the Met season; in Jess she finds an ideal showcase for her vocal and theatrical capabilities.” (Bachtrack)

“Tesori’s GROUNDED scores a dark triumph in Met season opener” (New York Classical Review)