‘Grounded’ Review: Operatic Soar
metroweekly.comTop Gun set to a musical theater score. After that subsides, you might then wonder if this is too round a peg trying to fit into too square a hole.And yet to see Jeanine Tersori’s Grounded, a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, is to be dazzled by concept and execution alike.
Here is opera — that wonderful, powdered, and bewigged confection of an artform — delivering on a story that could be ripped from the headlines.
And deliver it does.Innovating masterfully with LED-screen technology, this is an immensely visual experience: there is the boundless flight of a war jet, the eternal agitation of a targeting grid, the expanse of a Nevada highway, the monstrous vision of an instrument of war.Paired with the phenomenal performance of mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo in the title role — literally and musically soaring her way through Tersori’s richly textured and accessible score — Grounded not just earns, but burnishes opera’s place in the 21st century.Adapted from a play by George Brant, who also wrote the libretto, the action begins with F-16 fighter pilot Jess (D’Angelo) living for the adrenaline highs and sense of purpose in her many missions over Iraq.
But after a one-night stand with affable rancher Eric, everything changes when she finds herself pregnant.Summarily grounded by the Air Force, Jess spends the next eight years raising a daughter and pining to return to the skies.
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