Grounded (opera)

Grounded is an English-language opera in two acts with music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by George Brant. The libretto is adapted from Brant's play of the same name. The opera features a pilot, Jess, and shows her struggle to adapt to drone warfare. The opera premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2023 to mixed reviews. Emily D'Angelo was praised for her role as the lead character, and Tesori's score was generally well received. The way in which the opera dealt with the theme of drone warfare was generally criticized in by reviewers, who suggested it did not have a clear anti-war theme.

Background
The opera originated as a stage play by George Brant. The play, also called Grounded, was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013, and in New York in 2014. The New York performance starred Anne Hathaway. The play is a one-woman show in which the character is unnamed. Paul Cremo of the Metropolitan Opera attended the New York performance of the play, and shortly afterwards emailed Brant, saying "he heard an aria pulsing throughout it" and thought it could be produced as an opera. When Grounded was commissioned as an opera in 2018, Tesori became one of the first two women (along with Missy Mazzoli) to be commissioned to write a new opera by the Metropolitan Opera. Brant was asked to adapt his play into the libretto for the opera, though he had not worked on an opera before. Tesori's previous operas include her 2019 work Blue. Outside of operas, she is an experienced composer of musicals, with her work including Shrek the Musical.

On the announcement of the production by Washington National Opera, the opera's 'presenting sponsor' was listed as General Dynamics, an aerospace and defence corporation. The opera's fictional lead character is said to have a background as an F-16 pilot, an aircraft developed by General Dynamics. After extensive criticism, Washington National Opera changed the webpage to list General Dynamics as a 'season sponsor', and also rewrote the opera's promotional text. Despite this, General Dynamics were thanked alongside other sponsors on stage before the premiere performance at the Kennedy Center.

Synopsis
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. During her grounding, she controls Reaper drones from a base near Las Vegas, attacking distant targets. As a result of the drone warfare, her mental health suffers, and she is imprisoned after intentionally crashing a drone.

Act One
Jess, a F-16 fighter pilot in the United States Air Force, is both an accomplished pilot and also the only woman in her squadron. While on leave from combat in Iraq, she meets the rancher Eric. They sleep together and fall in love before Jess returns to duty – and discovers she is pregnant.

Jess can either keep the baby or keep flying. 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. Eight years pass. 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. Jess protests. But the Commander counters that since operators work 12-hour shifts and return to their families each night, Jess will get "war with all the benefits of home". She, Eric and Sam move to Las Vegas.

In the trailer, Jess adjusts to her new team: the Sensor, a teenage, former gaming champion who controls the drone's cameras; the Kill Chain, a chain of command that, via headset, assigns missions and approves strikes; and two stoic Observers. Initial tedium gives way to unexpected adrenaline rushes as Jess launches strikes. Meanwhile, Eric gets a job as a blackjack dealer. Jess begins encountering an eerie Drone Squadron and a second, dissociated version of herself.

Act Two


Jess and Sam are in the mall, surrounded by the free-sample-wielding Mall Squadron. In the dressing room, Jess fixates on who might be watching them through the mirror – and suddenly she is back in the trailer, only this time, her screen shows dying American soldiers. Noting her mounting distress, Eric encourages her to "clap off the game", a gesture he uses at the casino when clocking out.

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.

Finally, Jess tracks her target to his home – but he does not leave the car. As he drives off, a girl runs from the house, and the target springs from his car, waving her away: a positive identification. The Kill Chain orders the strike. But Jess, seeing Sam in the girl's place, intentionally crashes a Reaper drone. She is prosecuted and imprisoned after a court martial.

Performance history and reception
The opera premiered at the Kennedy Center on October 28, 2023, in a co-production of Washington National Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. 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. Woolfe went on to compare the opera unfavourably with Tesori's previous opera, Blue. 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."

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. He questioned the expansion of the cast, feeling that other than the central character, "everyone feels optional". Brodeur too did not feel that Grounded could be called an anti-war opera, stating that for periods of the opera, representations of the drones "border on garish advertisement". He also felt that the character Jess was weaker than the Pilot of the original play. Brodeur stated that the production failed to humanize the victims of drone warfare "until the last possible moment" and overall, the opera felt "like a miss".

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. He described Morris Robinson as "stentorian" in his performance as the Commander. Deriding the fact that the opera contains an aria about the making of a PowerPoint presentation, Downey stated that both acts "dragged".

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". Wingfield drew out Morris Robinson for special praise as an "utterly convincing presence".

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 praised the sensitivity of Daniela Candillari as conductor, and was complimentary of the support cast, staging, and lighting. Friscic reserved the highest praise for lead Emily D'Angelo, referring to her "breathtaking vocal control and tone". His assessment of the opera overall was as "ground-breaking" though he stated that the audience's reaction would be "a matter of taste and aesthetics".