Grounded Transmission Transcript
READ: Sierra Show Intro
NADINE SIERRA: Hello. I’m Nadine Sierra. And I’m pleased to be your host for today’s performance of Jeanine Tesori’s gripping new opera Grounded. With an artful libretto by George Brant, Grounded is the story of a female fighter pilot in the Iraq war who loses her flight privileges and ultimately becomes the commander of a Reaper drone charged with taking out terrorist targets.
This is a story about the devastating impact of war, both on the victims in the crosshairs and on the lives of those who pull the trigger. Canadian mezzo soprano Emily D’Angelo stars as Jess, the hotshot pilot grounded by an unexpected pregnancy. It’s a tour de force role that Tesori composed especially for Emily’s rich and powerful voice. Standout American tenor Ben Bliss is the steadfast Wyoming cowboy Jess falls for.
Director Michael Mayer has drawn upon an arsenal of high-tech LED panels and video projections, some of them voice-activated, to tell this very modern story of love and war. Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is ready to go to the pit. Here is Grounded.
INTERVIEW: Sierra w/ Emily D’Angelo
NADINE SIERRA: Hi, Emily. How are you?
EMILY D’ANGELO: Great to see you, Nadine.
NADINE SIERRA: Bravo.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Thank you, thank you.
NADINE SIERRA: It’s so beautiful. Your portrayal of Jess is so vivid and real.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Thank you so much.
NADINE SIERRA: How does it feel to be opera’s first female fighter pilot? (Laughs)
EMILY D’ANGELO: Oh, it’s amazing. I am so, so lucky and just – we have the most amazing team here and, yeah, it’s a – it’s a dream.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh, I’m so glad. I love that Jeanine Tesori wrote this music especially for you. Can you tell us about your amazing journey with that?
EMILY D’ANGELO: Yeah, it’s been – it’s been totally amazing. It’s been a year’s long journey. I met Jeanine the first time six years ago and she hadn’t yet started writing the piece. And we talked and hit it off, and she came to one of my voice lessons with my teacher –
NADINE SIERRA: That’s what I had heard, yeah.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Yeah. So, she – she and myself and Trish sort of went to work and we showed her everything the voice could do and then she put pen to paper – or pencil, presumably.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh, wow. So, she discovered your range and everything?
EMILY D’ANGELO: Yeah, yeah.
NADINE SIERRA: That’s amazing. So, it’s hard to believe you made your Met debut less than six years ago as one of the three ladies in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. So, how has your rise felt? Has it felt very fast, or slow, or kind of in between?
EMILY D’ANGELO: Oh, gosh, it’s really hard to – to – to describe that. Yeah, it’s been amazing. I feel so lucky to be where I am now. And every time I get to be in this theatre on this stage, I – I just feel so, so lucky. So, I’m just thrilled to be here.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh, yay. So, Grounded is such an intense opera. How are you able to shake it off after a performance?
EMILY D’ANGELO: Yeah, clap off the game, as we – as we call it here. (Laughs) Yeah, there’s a bit of that going on here. I think for the whole team, in rehearsals when we’re rehearsing this every day for six hours or more, it’s, uh – it’s a lot to live with for sure. It’s very serious subject matter.
NADINE SIERRA: Yeah.
EMILY D’ANGELO: But, um, Jeanine’s music is also so uplifting, despite the – the sort of intensity of the story, so it’s – it’s been, uh – yeah, I feel – I feel happy even though it’s – it’s a tough role. Yeah.
NADINE SIERRA: That’s good. Yes, absolutely. Today is the last performance of the run.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Yes.
NADINE SIERRA: Yeah, which must be bittersweet for you.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Yeah.
NADINE SIERRA: So, how are you feeling about coming to the end of this journey?
EMILY D’ANGELO: Yeah, it’s – it’s incredible that we get to end our – our run here with an HD.
NADINE SIERRA: Yeah.
EMILY D’ANGELO: And sing for everyone.
NADINE SIERRA: The masses. Worldwide.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Yeah, it’s incredible. Yeah, we’re so thrilled. So, thank you everyone who’s here tuning in.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh, Emily. Well, thank you so much. This is truly a tour de force for you, so please get some rest before Act Two.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Thank you so much.
NADINE SIERRA: And I want to say personally, I loved your performance, the opening night.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Oh, thank you so much.
NADINE SIERRA: I went and I cried. You really touched me very much.
EMILY D’ANGELO: Thank you so much. You know, I’m your huge fan so really always happy to see you –
NADINE SIERRA: I’m a fan of yours too. I love you. (Laughs) Sorry, I had to just say that. So Grounded began as George Brant’s one-woman play at one time starring Anne Hathaway. It has been a long road to transform it into a multi-character opera on the stage of the Met.
We recently interviewed George and composer Jeanine Tesori about their process.
ROLL-IN B: The Making of Grounded
GEORGE BRANT: I wrote the first draft of Grounded in 2011, um, and I was generally interested in drones. Um, they were a top secret program at the time. There was kind of an attitude at the time of kind of like, “Don't worry about it. Nobody’s getting into harm’s way, and they're incredibly precise...” And that was kind of the party line, and I wanted to know more, as they were increasingly being used. The material that I discovered was fascinating to me and drew me into the story. So then Grounded took this journey, um, to becoming an opera, uh, starting when Paul Cremo, who is New Opera Development Fellow here at the Met, uh, came and saw the production back in 2014.
JEANINE TESORI: I had gotten a commission and, uh, I was looking for just the right, um, source material. And Paul called and said, “I think I have it.” And so we went and saw Grounded at the Studio Theatre in D.C. And the minute it was over, I thought, “I hear that, I hear the world. I don't hear the specific singing, but I hear the way that it could expand.”
GEORGE BRANT: When I looked into what the pilots, um, who pilot these planes go through, that was when I got really interested, um, finding out that they flew the planes not from overseas but here in America, outside of Las Vegas. This idea of how much can you compartmentalize your life. I was interested in how does a family survive under those conditions.
JEANINE TESORI: My uncle came back from Vietnam and was almost silent for a year, could not speak. And that's moral injury. That’s this idea that there is some trauma that was outside him. There were things that he would never, to the day he died, speak about. And the circle of responsibility that we have for the people who are serving, and the moral ambiguity of what they’re doing, that is why I wrote this.
GEORGE BRANT: Jess is this woman who’s – who’s always wanted to be a pilot. And the Air Force – you know, only one percent, I believe, of enlisted people in the Air Force are actually fighter pilots, and then only two percent of that one percent are women. Um, so she has truly achieved something wonderful. When we first meet her she is at her pinnacle, and really the whole rest of the opera is a series of things that knock her off her center.
JEANINE TESORI: The, um, women we’ve spoken to who are pilots, in the way they talk about flying is really incredible. Hearing from this woman, a woman in an industry that is mostly run by men, a woman who discovers motherhood, um, and – and the sacrifice and the joys and the heartache of motherhood…I felt this way in my twenties, when I was trying to fit into what I considered a man’s world, and then I got pregnant. And it transformed everything for me. My life started again when I became a mother.
GEORGE BRANT: Grounded started out as a one-woman play, which now strikes me as quite amusing as, obviously, in this process, we’ve expanded it quite a bit, and we started thinking about what American myth, um, haven’t we covered? Um, and, you know, if she is the warrior, we thought, “Well, what about the cowboy, you know, the American cowboy?” And we went and ended up going for rancher as opposed to cowboy. Um, but he is really of the earth, you know, and he is grounded. And, um – and she’s in the sky. And so these two, you know, elemental forces meet each other, who both have their own power and their own – their own strength.
JEANINE TESORI: I can only write and describe in music what I know. And what I write in Grounded is how I have sometimes felt. And then heightened it, of course, because I don't have the experience of this life or death situation, or bearing witness to what you have done when you take lives like that, the brutality of it. Musicals and operas, sometimes they have you escape, but I do think there are times that it completes the circle of responsibility for what’s happening in our world.
READ: Sierra Neubauer / Johnson / Throw to break
NADINE SIERRA: What an extraordinary collaboration. The Met’s Live in HD series is made possible thanks to its founding sponsor, the Neubauer Family Foundation. Digital support is provided by Bloomberg Philanthropies. The Met Live in HD series is supported by Rolex. Today’s performance of Grounded will be heard later this season over the Robert K. Johnson Foundation Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network. We’ll be back after a break.
READ: Intro creative team feature
NADINE SIERRA: Welcome back. Met cinema audiences are familiar with the work of today’s director Michael Mayer from his productions of Rigoletto set in Las Vegas, La Traviata set in the 19th century and Marni, set in the late 1950s. With this premiere staging of Grounded, Michael enlisted set designer Mimi Lien and video designer Jason Thompson to help him create a high-tech production that suits this very contemporary story of drone warfare.
ROLL-IN C: Grounded Creative Team Feature
MICHAEL MAYER: Grounded is the story of a woman fighter pilot, flies F-16s in the, uh, Iraq War. She loves her job; she’s probably the best fighter pilot they have. We meet her literally in the air, flying in a plane and feeling the most exultant and the most empowered and loving this part of her life – the freedom, the joy of flight. Um, and then, by the end of the play, she is literally and figuratively grounded. So we're going from the sky to the earth. And that is part of what our journey is all night long.
MIMI LIEN: My first sketch, um, for the piece was comprised of two angled surfaces, and it was like this, like I imagined that it was in forced perspective moving away from your eye, and there was a sky plane and a ground plane. It felt like Jess is in the sky, Eric is on the ground. These are the two people in, um – in relationship and the two spaces that they inhabit.
MICHAEL MAYER: Upstairs, the sky, however you want to call it, is completely digital. It’s LED screens on the floor, on the ceiling, on the wall. Jason Thompson, who is the brilliant video designer, he and his partner, Kaitlyn Pietras, have designed this absolutely dazzling array of worlds.
JASON THOMPSON: The LED tiles, they move around, there’s a ballet, there’s a mechanism to them; it’s very complicated. It’s almost 400 tiles, which is pretty amazing. The LED walls have such an energy to them. They are their own light source and there is a, um – and there’s a very delicate balance between the lighting of this production and the video walls because they have to work together. But having been up there myself, I think you feel the energy of that space up above.
MIMI LIEN: We start out in the sky and there’s this space of vastness and expanse. When we meet Eric, we also have a different kind of expanse – of expanse on the land, of the prairie. We very quickly go to these locations in Wyoming. We go to a bar and we go to Eric's cabin. And as I was doing research for these locations and looking at Wyoming, it just, there was a prevalence of wood, right? So, log cabins, lots of wood everywhere. Um, and so I immediately gravitated towards that as a material in contrast to the LED panels, which were these planes above.
MICHAEL MAYER: Her love interest, Eric, played by Ben Bliss, is a rancher, and all of his scenes are on the ground and there’s nothing digital. It’s all analog.
MIMI LIEN: And then when we go to the drone trailer, we’re in like, one of the smallest spaces imaginable. Literally, an eight foot by eight foot space. When you look into the cockpit of even a commercial plane, it’s a little bit overwhelming, the amount of stuff that those pilots are surrounded by. And so one of my initial images was also that Jess was just enclosed and completely enveloped by screens.
JASON THOMPSON: The Kill Chain voices that are right there in her headset, you know, I was excited to try to find a way to — to visualize that. And every time they vocalize, we see that all over the set.
MICHAEL MAYER: Every time I’m working in this house, something magical happens in the rooms, when I’m with these unbelievable artists and the staff here. I mean it’s – you know, there’s no place like it, right? There’s something about the size and the scope of this place and you feel it. It’s in the walls, it’s in the floor, it’s in the air. It’s – it’s magic.
READ: PSA / Fundraising / Throw to HD Season Preview
NADINE SIERRA: What a remarkable group of artists. I myself was lucky to work with Michael Mayer two seasons ago when I sang Violetta in his production of La Traviata, which was also seen live in movie theatres. I was positively thrilled to have my performance beamed to the world.
But as exciting as opera on the big screen can be, it’s simply not the same as the experience of live opera in the opera house. Live voices soaring over the great Met orchestra here in this sublime theatre – I get chills just thinking about it. So, please, come to the Met or visit your local opera company.
Michael Mayer has two new productions in the first half of the Live in HD season, today’s Grounded and coming up, a dazzling new staging of Verdi’s Aida, starring my great friend Angel Blue. These two operas are a testament to the range of work the Met is committed to presenting on this stage. Bold new pieces that advance the art form alongside the timeless classics we all know and love.
All these productions are staged at the highest artistic level. But, as you can imagine, putting on such a rich rewarding Met season comes at a great expense, and ticket sales cover only a fraction of the costs. The Met relies on opera lovers like you to help make up the difference. So, if you’re able to make a donation, please visit metopera.org/donate. You can also text HDLIVE to 44321 to make a contribution, or call us at 212-362-0068. Thank you for your support of the Met. The Met has six more movie theatre presentations coming up this season. Here’s a preview.
READ: Lise Davidsen excerpt
NADINE SIERRA: As we just saw, the Met’s next cinema presentation will be Puccini’s Tosca with my incredible soprano colleague Lise Davidsen in the title role. It’s sure to be another triumph for Lise. Just watch this clip of her from the last time she appeared on cinema screens. This is an excerpt from Leonora’s great aria, “Pace, pace, mio Dio,” from Verdi’s La Forza del Destino.
INTERVIEW: Sierra w/ Yannick Nézet-Séguin
NADINE SIERRA: Amazing. Incredible. Lise Davidsen’s conductor for that performance of La Forza del Destino and for the upcoming Tosca cinema transmission also happens to be on the podium today. Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who’s with me now. Hi, Maestro.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Hello, Nadine.
NADINE SIERRA: Hi.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Great to see you.
NADINE SIERRA: Good to see you too. So, I want to talk about Grounded, but first a quick word about this Tosca.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Yes.
NADINE SIERRA: So, Lise Davidsen in the title role, debuting tenor sensation Freddie De Tommaso as Cavaradossi, the great Quinn Kelsey as Scarpia. You must be very excited about this cast.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: An embarrassment of riches. (Laughs)
NADINE SIERRA: (Laughs) Oh, wow.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: I mean, I’m always so lucky. Remember our Roméo et Juliette together? The best cast possible. This Grounded, this Tosca – it’s a wonderful production that the Met has been doing for a few years now.
NADINE SIERRA: Yeah.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: They did McVicar and I did it a few years ago with different casts – Sondra Radvanovsky, Aleksandra Kurzak. Now to have Lise, we’ve developed a – a special rapport now. And doing this, it’s going to be historic really.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh!
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: And we do this in tribute to Puccini.
NADINE SIERRA: Yes, of course.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: So, uh, it’s, uh, always to do it with my Met orchestra musicians and Met chorus, to do Puccini is just a treat for me.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh, it’s going to be a dream, I’m sure. So, getting back to Grounded, I know that you’ve loved working with Jeanine Tesori. What about her and her music is so special for you?
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Well, working with living composers is the great – well, one of the great joys of my life. And we do it increasingly at the Met, and that’s fantastic. You know, Terrance was fantastic, Matthew Aucoin was fantastic, uh, so many – Kevin Puts. But Jeanine comes, of course, from a theatre background.
NADINE SIERRA: Yes, that’s right.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: And I – working with her is – she was always listening to music with a purpose of the dramatic arc. And we were doing several adjustments in rehearsals and cuts, and she was the first to know exactly – you know, we didn’t need someone to say, you know, do you consider this? She would always know exactly –
NADINE SIERRA: She had her own vision.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Absolutely.
NADINE SIERRA: Yeah, that’s good.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: And the collaboration that was there, she would listen to my own take with it and some – she encouraged me to suggestions, not in terms of what to cut but in the musical interpretation really. And at some point she said, Yannick, now the piece is yours. I don’t want to talk anymore.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: It feels like it’s yours. I – it’s one of the greatest encounters I had really – Jeanine.
NADINE SIERRA: Wow.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: I think she’s one of our true, true, true geniuses in this country and, uh, Grounded was a great pleasure and privilege for us to bring at the Met. And we hope we’re going to convince her to write another opera. (Laughs)
NADINE SIERRA: Oh, that would be nice. That would be fabulous. So –
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: And she’s also a great orchestrator, by the way.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh, that’s very – that’s very important.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Just to say, you know, because she knows how to – as you know
NADINE SIERRA: Yes.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: — she knows how to know when not to use the whole orchestra when the singers are there, you know.
NADINE SIERRA: Exactly. Yes.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: And not everyone has this –
NADINE SIERRA: It’s important to find that balance.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Exactly.
NADINE SIERRA: Yes. So, Maestro, our intermission is approaching the end, so you should probably get back because I know you want to rest and go downstairs to the pit. So, thank you so much for joining me today.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Thank you, Nadine.
NADINE SIERRA: Nice to see you again.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Nice to see you again.
NADINE SIERRA: And bravo.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: Thank you, everyone watching this.
NADINE SIERRA: Yes.
YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN: We think of you when we make music. Thank you.
NADINE SIERRA: Absolutely. Thank you, Maestro. Thank you.
INTERVIEW: Sierra w/ Ben Bliss
NADINE SIERRA: Now I get to speak with our star tenor, Ben Bliss. Hi, Ben.
BEN BLISS: Hello, Nadine. Good to see you.
NADINE SIERRA: Thank you. It’s good to see you.
BEN BLISS: It’s been a minute.
NADINE SIERRA: Yeah. Bravo.
BEN BLISS: Thank you.
NADINE SIERRA: So, your character is the rancher Eric. He didn’t actually appear in the original stage play of Grounded and yet he seems like such a rich, well-defined figure in today’s opera. What attracted you specifically to this role?
BEN BLISS: Mostly the jeans and the cowboy boots.
NADINE SIERRA: (Laughs)
BEN BLISS: If I’m going to be honest. No. (Laughs)
NADINE SIERRA: I knew it. I knew it.
BEN BLISS: Uh, I did – I read the play a couple years ago and really responded to George’s work. And I know Jeanine’s work and, uh, was really enthused to hear it. And then once I heard the score, I was – you know, I was just absolutely hooked. It’s such a unique opportunity to be a part of that next step in defining the oeuvres of opera in this country in this time.
NADINE SIERRA: Yes. Yeah, that’s very true. Did you do any special research to prepare this role, besides reading the play? Did you – I heard you had spoken to some of the spouses of, uh – of war and these kinds of things.
BEN BLISS: Yeah.
NADINE SIERRA: Really?
BEN BLISS: The biggest piece of research I did was to decide to be born in Kansas. That helps a lot.
NADINE SIERRA: (Laughs)
BEN BLISS: Uh, and then Emily and I got to spend an evening, um – Emily sang an event onboard the – the Intrepid, which is a retired U.S. aircraft carrier.
NADINE SIERRA: Yeah?
BEN BLISS: In the Chelsea Piers. And we had, um, a retired general, who was a woman, as well as a retired – I believe a lieutenant-colonel, who was a fighter pilot and also piloted unmanned, uh, drones.
NADINE SIERRA: Wow.
BEN BLISS: And so we got to go out to dinner with them and have a couple of cocktails and share some literal war stories.
NADINE SIERRA: Oh, that is quite some research. Oh, that is so cool.
BEN BLISS: It was great.
NADINE SIERRA: So, Ben, it’s such a tender, gorgeously sung performance you’re giving today. Bravo and thank you so much.
BEN BLISS: Good to see you, Nadine.
NADINE SIERRA: Good to see you too. Bravo.
BEN BLISS: Bye.
READ: Throw to Act II
NADINE SIERRA: At the end of the previous act, Jess sees the gruesome results of her drone attacks, the dawn of her awakening to the horrors of remote warfare. Here now is the dramatic conclusion of Grounded.