WNO Premieres "Grounded", an Opera With Too Many Messages

The world premiere of Grounded reaffirms Washington National Opera as a leading producer of quintessentially American works.  Composed by Jeanine Tesori to the libretto of George Brant, based on his own award-winning play, the opera deals with travails of a female F-16 pilot, whose career gets derailed after pregnancy. It is not hard to imagine the drama this could cause in the life of an ambitious air force officer. But for the creators of Grounded this was not enough. Their opera tackles a myriad of other topics: the evolution of the American military, the changing role of women at home and at work, the pros and cons of using drones in war and allowing IT and surveillance technologies to invade our lives. It concludes with an anti-war message and perhaps others that may be missed in the crowd.

The curtain rises to the sound reminiscing the buzzing engine of an approaching airplane before it blends with orchestral music. The opening scene with a triangular formation of fully uniformed airmen, with one point of the triangle facing the audience, looks promising. A soaring mezzo rises above the male chorus and the squad leader steps out. It takes a while to realize it is a woman, who rose to the rank of major after a number of successful air raid missions. Her persona suggests she has made every effort to look, talk and behave no different than any of her male counterparts. It is hard to pick her out from the rest of the servicemen when the group gathers in a Wyoming bar during a home leave. Even her approach to romance and sex is so masculine that the idea of a local farmer being attracted to her beggars belief. And yet, he claims he likes her best in her uniform and calls her my "flygirl."

Emily D’Angelo as F-16 fighter pilot in WNO's opera Grounded

After this one amorous encounter, the pilot, her name is Jess, discovers she is pregnant. At this point, one would expect a dramatic turn in the opera, perhaps a confrontation with her commanding officer, but Jess (portrayed by Emily D'Angelo in her WNO debut) respects the rules and retreats to Wyoming to inform her one-night-stand (OK, maybe there were two nights) Eric of his impending fatherhood. She expects rejection, but Eric is thrilled, and within minutes we see their daughter Sam grow from a baby to a school-age child. Jess resumes service stateside and works long hours on duties that do not include flying (DNIF). The husband takes over the parenting role. Jess misses her F-16, or Tiger as she lovingly calls it, and the blue sky into which she melds during her flights. 

After about eight years, judging by the daughter's age, the star pilot is summoned by her commander and ordered to resume bombing missions. But this time they will be conduced remotely from a trailer in the Nevada desert.  Jess objects to joining what she calls the "chair force" where she would spend her days staring at gigantic computer screens and perform tasks better suited for a teenager proficient in video-games. The Commander says this is where she is needed and where she will have "war with all the benefits of home." Jess and her family move to Nevada and Eric gets a job in a Las Vegas casino.

 Split scene with Jess at home with Commander above,
photo Scott Suchman

This would have been a good time to end Act I because with the new assignment Jess's life will change drastically. But Act I plods on with  Commander extolling the virtues of a $17-million Reaper drone, which she and her assistant, Sensor, will use to pinpoint targets thousands of miles away.  

The bomber jet pilot disparages the windowless craft that she sees as soulless and blind, but her young assistant points out, that the drone actually has an eye - a camera trained to the ground where it picks up images of moving targets. After initial boredom with her chair job, which consists of scrutinizing grey pixilated images, Jess gets bouts of excitement from her remote-controlled strikes. But the images of dead American soldiers are traumatizing. Even blasting suspected terrorists causes pangs of conscience. Soon the reality and her imagination begin to blur. The appearance of her alter ego Also Jess (portrayed by splendid soprano Teresa Perrotta) is a clear sign that her mind is unraveling. 

In the second act Jess is clearly suffering from the PTS disorder. She is rattled by surveillance cameras in the shopping mall and paranoid about being watched every step of the way like she watches her targets in the hostile territory. Instead of the sky blue she is craving, everything around her seems grey. The Nevada desert becomes no different than deserts thousands of miles away in Syria or Afghanistan. At home she collapses from physical and mental exhaustion after a 12-hour shift, and cannot find comfort with her family. In bed with her husband she splits into Also Jess who is present physically and real Jess whose spirit drifts away.  The threat of death has been removed, but not the threat to her well being. In one scene she wipes the invisible blood from her hands like Lady Macbeth. After a year in the trailer, she is assigned a high-profile mission, but is unable to accomplish it after seeing her daughter's face in the image of a foreign girl running toward her father, who is the target. Jess sabotages the order to strike and is court-marshaled. 

Brant's original play was an 80-minute monologue by an unnamed female pilot.  Using drone in wars was a relative novelty a decade ago and its impact on the soldiers was not understood. A piece focusing on the PTS disorder garnered great success in both US and European theaters. Tesori was impressed by it too and wanted to expand it into a full-scale opera, that would include characters mentioned in the pilot's monologue. Brant worked with Tesori to create a libretto with roles for those characters and scenes in which they interact. He added dialogues between the protagonists, mostly military personnel, and peppered their language with crude words for authenticity's sake. The result is a 2.5-hour long opera that wavers between engaging moments and weak spots. In the final scene, for example, the penalized pilot delivers a cringe-worthy warning (to Americans?), a sort of "Live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword" cliché, ending with the single word "boom", in hushed tones. Perhaps an echo of a real explosion reverberating in the pilot's mind?  

The music incorporates sounds of military trumpets, popular soldier tunes or country music to help set the scene. The score is full of likable passages that are in no way innovative, revolutionary or memorable. 

Apart from Jess, the characters in the opera are not adequately fleshed out. Eric (tenor Joseph Dennis) is more of an accessory to his wife, sort of like Mattel's Ken to Barbie. Bass Morris Robinson as Commander and baritone Kyle Miller as Sensor are more convincing in their shorter roles. 

Set designer Mimi Lien employed digital technology and more than 300 interlocked LED panels to create real and imaginary places in Jess's world: blue sky around her flying jet, evening at her Wyoming home, Nevada desert during her commute to work, a sonogram of her baby's fetus. The stage is split in two levels: the lower representing places on the ground and the upper showing the blue sky, military scenes or imagery from Jess's troubled mind. Advanced video technology enhances the sense of the environment and understanding of the pilot's state of mind. The sets and lighting work in concert with the sound for the best effect.

Pilot in the control room with Sensor and two observers, photo Scott Suchman

Grounded is an impressive undertaking, tackling issues that resonate with many Americans today. Have we enabled women to shine in any career they choose or is motherhood still an impediment? How do we advance at work in an era depending increasingly on robots, AI and digital technology better understood by younger people? How is our brain affected by never-ending involvement in wars, exposure to violence and shrinkage of meaningful interaction with family and friends? All of these topics are worth exploring, but not in one opera. With too many themes vying for attention, Grounded explores none in depth and fails to make a powerful impact. If it is to open next year's season at the Metropolitan Opera, it may have to undergo a major overhaul. 

Tesori is an accomplished and popular composer, best known for her musicals. She has found a staunch supporter in WNO artistic director Francesca Zambello, who has sponsored her forays into the opera. Earlier this year WNO presented Tesori's opera Blue, and on  Saturday, it opened its 2023-2024 season with much heralded Grounded. Later this year, the company will revive Tesori's holiday favorite The Lion, the Unicorn, and Me.  

Blue was a masterpiece in every respect: from the enfolding drama and convincing dialogues to well developed characters, excellent interpretations and great music throughout. Created in cooperation with librettist Tazewell Thompson, the award-winning work offered an insight into a personal tragedy of a black US policeman whose son was shot by another policeman. In Grounded, a bunch of hot issues are thrown together without a connecting thread or a clear and coherent message. Without impressive music, or sufficiently dramatic moments to lift the tedium of two long acts, an opera risks staying grounded forever.

There are five more performances of WNO's opera Grounded, with the last one on November 13.

Zambello Shines With WNO's New Elektra

Not since Wagner's Ring in 2016 have we seen such a brilliant Washington National Opera production as Richard Strauss' Elektra on Monday night at the Kennedy Center.  The performance showed what WNO's artistic director Francesca Zambello can do when she puts her mind to it, from collecting the best interpreters for some of the hardest operatic roles to getting the artistic team to join forces to create a memorable revival of a groundbreaking masterpiece.

After visiting Calcutta (today's Kolkata), India, Sir Winston Churchill said: "I shall always be glad to have seen it for the reason that it will be unnecessary for me to see it again." This is how many opera fans feel about Strauss' Elektra. This is probably how I felt when I first saw it all those many years ago, with Hungarian soprano Eva Marton in the role of the revenge-obsessed Greek heroine.

Strauss' Elektra is based on Hugo von Hofmannsthal's 1903 play, which was inspired by an old Greek legend and subsequent plays written by Sophocles and other tragedians.  In Greek legend, King Agamemnon of Mycenae returns from the Trojan War to be assassinated by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Agamemnon's daughters Electra and Chrysothemis are spared, but closely watched, and his son Orestes is sent away. Years later, Orestes returns to see the justice done. According to the legend, he then takes the crown and Electra marries his friend Pylades.

Not so in Strauss' opera. His Elektra is traumatized by the bloody murder of her father, which she has either witnessed or has seen his massacred body in the aftermath ("dein Blut rann über deine Augen, und das Bad dampfte von deinem Blut"). She is now torn by the need for revenge. 

Elektra is a female counterpart to Hamlet, only more direct, more fierce and more bloodthirsty.  Unlike Hamlet, who causes many deaths before his own, Elektra is mostly self-destructing. She does not bathe, she does not groom her hair or clothes, and she does not control her behavior, even to save herself. Her raison d'être is getting her father's assassins killed, possibly with the same axe that was used to slaughter him in his bath. After that, she plans to celebrate with a dance around his grave.

We first get a hint of Elektra's deranged mind from a conversation between five  maids, at the start of the opera, but the degree of her abomination is further underlined by contrast with her younger sister Chrysothemis. After being told that their brother Orest is dead, Chrysothemis loses hope to get justice done and is ready to move on, while Elektra believes it is now up to the sisters to kill the murderers, their mother Klytämnestra and her new husband Aegisth. 

Elektra and Chrysothemis, Photo: Scott Such

Chrysothemis urges her sister to contain her anger lest she should be forced to spend the rest of her life in prison. She wants for both of them to abandon the misery of the corrupt court, and start a new life. Her plea for a future as a wife and mother is one of the most poignant scenes in the opera ("Kinder will ich haben, hevor mein Leib verwelkt, und wär's ein Bauer, dem sie mich geben). But Elektra cannot be swayed from her course and is fierce or devious in turn, as needed. She promises Chrysothemis a lavish wedding and a handsome husband to enlist her help for the deadly deed.

Klytämnestra is weary of her elder daughter, but convinced of Elektra's supernatural powers comes to seek her help to get rid of the nightmares that keep her awake. Elektra's suggested remedy is not to her liking.  "Wenn das rechte Blutopfer unterm Beile Fällt, dann träumst du nicht länger" (if you offer the right sacrifice, the dreams will be gone). 

Klytämnestra towering over Elektra, Photo credit: Scott Suchman

Orest returns from exile and with Elektra's help sneaks into the palace where he kills his mother and her lover. Elektra's mission accomplished, she begins the joyful dance announced as the drama began, and does not stop until she falls dead. Orest is crowned in this production, which is not standard, but brings some optimism at the end of the tragedy.

The relentless strife, pain, agony and madness are densely packed in one long act. The constant agitation, primal screams, laments and intense orchestral music can be taxing on the audience as well as the performers. If the singers shriek, as some are wont to do, it makes wading through the drama harder.  Seeing the curtain fall on the final scene can be a real relief.

None of this was evident in WNO's Elektra on Monday night. The production was well paced and the voices enjoyable. I cannot think of a better choice for the title role than Christine Goerke. Her plush, but hefty soprano floated smoothly from the stage, enveloping the space with force and sweetness, a combination rarely heard in this opera. At times, Goerke brought to mind her superb Brünhilde on the same stage a few years ago, making one wonder how much influence Wagner really had on Strauss. Goerke was frightful in her anger, seductive in her cajoling and almost girlishly coy about her unkempt looks before Orest.  Only her aimless climbing up and down a pile of rubber gravel on the stage seemed superfluous at times. Goerke could convey any feeling with her voice and stance without moving at all.

A real surprise of the evening was Sara Jakubiak's Chrysotemis. Never have I heard such an impressive rendition of this young girl's plea for a peaceful life. The soprano portraying Chrysothemis has to be exceptional to make an impression next to Elektra and Jakubiak definitely did that.  I wish I had seen Goerke's Chrysothemis in an older WNO production of the opera.

Swedish mezzo-soprano Katarina Dalayman was a queen not sure of her power. If Elektra is half-crazed, Dalayman's Klytämnestra is surely getting there, but more like a cackling old lady losing her mind than a murdering despot. 

Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo-Green was an impressive Orest, a role in my view more suitable for him than Escamillo in WNO's latest Carmen. He exuded physical strength and guile Orest needed to regain his rightful position at a court overtaken by treachery.

Czech tenor Štefan Margita emphasized Aegisth's physical and moral weakness in his brief appearance. It was hard to link this pathetic figure with acts of horrific carnage.  

Evan Rogister conducted with aplomb, emphasizing the terror and the drama, without overpowering the singers.

The return of Orest, Photo credit: Scott Suchman

Erhard Rom's set is simple and dark. The only light-colored props are the ruins of a Greek entablature with Agamemnon's name on it, toppled to the ground to signal the demise of his kingdom. Behind them loom modern black structures of a new palace under construction. 

Bibhu Mohapatra's costumes for Elektra and the maids bear elements of Greek peasant garb, while Chrysotemis, Klytämnestra and her retinue wear contemporary looking festive dresses with red, black and gold accents. It is not quite clear why the queen's headgear looks more fitting for a Valkyrie than an ancient Greek royal. Aegisth's appearance is somewhat clownish as he stumbles on the scene in a long tunic, inebriated and clueless. Orest and his companions wear copper-colored breastplates shaped to reflect sculpted bodies underneath, complemented with royal blue shirts and green mantles.

In the post-performance Q & A session, Zambello said the groups were separated by distinctly different costumes to emphasize their belonging to different  factions. In answer to another question, she acknowledged that all the artists sigh a huge breath of relief when the opera is over.  It sounded like Churchill after visiting Calcutta.

I can't remember how exactly I felt after seeing my first Elektra, but I know that I have always considered it a challenge - an opera that needs to be seen and heard time and time again to be conquered. In the past Elektra always won. But the WNO performance on Monday night was unlike any version I had heard before.

I was truly enthralled by it entirely for the first time: the music, acting, voices, dancers and even the somewhat simplistic set.  Zambello's latest production has restored my hope in the return of a better era for the opera house which has floundered in recent years with pedestrian productions of popular works.