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.

Japan to Expand Military Role In First Policy Shift After WWII

Japan Ends 60-Year-Old Ban On Fighting Abroad 

Japan took a historic step Tuesday by adopting a resolution to shift away from its post-war pacifism, which has kept the military from fighting abroad.  In 1945, following the allied bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan signed a surrender and subsequently adopted a constitution which bars it from using force to resolve conflicts except in cases of self-defense.

Shinzo Abe, Japanese Prime Minister

The cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won his bid for a resolution which allows Japan to  fight on foreign soil on certain conditions and participate in UN's peace-keeping missions.   The change constitutes the most dramatic policy shift since Japan set up its post-war armed forces 60 years ago. 

The United States has welcomed the move, while China and South Korea whose people have suffered under Japan's occupation voice concern.  

It is widely speculated that Abe fought for a landmark change to "contain" China's influence in the region.  But some analysts argue that the move has been considered and debated for many years and for more than one reason.

A change has not been adopted earlier mainly because of the fierce opposition within Japan.  More than 10,000 demonstrators gathered in Tokyo Monday to protest the expanded military role, far more than in neighboring South Korea or China.  But many Japanese also feel that the time has come for their nation to shake off its pacifist status. 

Derek Mitchell, a senior analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, made the following observation in 2005:  "They are now talking about changing their constitution to say that their self-defense forces actually constitute a military.  And there is also a sense that perhaps Japan's defense agency should be a full ministry, like any other country.  So it is emerging out of its past, which was rather extraordinary and abnormal, into a more normal nation."

After World War II, occupied Japan had to dismantle its military and adopt a constitution that allows the use of arms only in case of an attack on the Japanese territory.   Yuki Tatsumi, a research fellow with the East Asia program at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, said the relatively low cost of its collective defense force enabled Japan to channel its resources to other areas.  "Because Japan didn't have to spend that much on defense, it was able to focus more on its economic development and it did lead to Japan's rapid economic growth which really hit the high note in the 1980s," said  Tatsumi.

By the time its economy slowed in the 1990s, Japan was a major power, both in Asia and globally.  The United States, Japan's World War II adversary, has become its staunch ally. Neighboring countries, once targeted by Japanese colonialists, are Tokyo's major trading partners.  Japan has been contributing to global peace-building efforts.  And it has served as a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.  But since the 1990s, the decline of the Japanese economy, the rise of China and India, global terrorist attacks and North Korea's provocations have shaken Japan from its pacifist complacency. 

Muthia Alagappa, senior associate in the Asia Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the 1991 Persian Gulf War was a major turning point.  "The Japanese contribution was largely financial.  They contributed some $11-12 billion, which is a large amount of money, but Japan never got recognition for that.  Instead, Japan was blamed for not contributing in terms of blood."

Alagappa said the United States has put pressure on Japan to contribute military aid, including troops, toward international security efforts.  But, he said, the mood has changed in Tokyo as well, especially after 1998 when North Korea conducted ballistic missile tests over Japanese waters and, starting in 2006,  three nuclear tests.  Japan's desire to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council is another reason, said Alagappa.

"If you are going to be a permanent member of the Security Council, then you have to partake in the collective enforcement efforts authorized by the Security Council," said Alagappa.  "So there, I think, it's very difficult for Japan not to play a role just like other countries; like China and the U.S. and so forth.  So I think it becomes increasingly important for Japan to be able to play a role as part of Chapter Seven of the U.N. Charter," he said.

Thus, despite a strong pacifist undercurrent among the Japanese public, in 2004 then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi responded to the U.S. request by sending several hundred troops to Iraq on a non-combat mission. 

Mitchell said there is no reason today why Japan's armed forces and foreign policy should be constrained by a post-World War II mind set.  "After 60 years, I think, time has passed and Japan is a new Japan.  They've had a different history over the past 60 years," he says. "Asia is different. The U.S. has evolved. And I think what you are going to see is a more normal Japan," said Mitchell. "There is a growing sense of nationalist pride.  Now they can recognize a national anthem and a national flag - only in the past couple of years.  And they feel that perhaps they ought to have a sense of themselves more.  And with that goes the military."

Mitchell noted that Japan's so-called self-defense force has grown over the years, and now has ground, air and naval forces like most other nations. "They have advanced destroyers. They have advanced fighter jets.  They have been developing their missile defenses and submarines.  They have pretty advanced capabilities that they are developing, in helicopter carriers, that are able to project power,"  said Mitchell.  He also said that Japan spends about 40 billion dollars a year on its armed forces, more than most other countries.  So even if they call it differently, the Japanese possess a strong military, capable of flexing its muscle anywhere in the world.

But Japan's neighbors, whose memories of imperial Tokyo's atrocities from before and during World War II are still fresh, worry about a more assertive Japan in the global community.   Japan's "normalization" may be needed for the security and stability of the region, but Tokyo may have to put some effort into reassuring its neighbors that they have no reason to fear it. 

US Women Getting Closer to Combat Lines

Voice of America

February 9, 2012

The Pentagon is unveiling plans to allow women to serve in military jobs closer to the front lines.

The new rules would ease restrictions on women in combat, reflecting the realities of the past decade of war. Officials say the changes would formally open about 14,000 jobs to women. Female service members would be able to assume positions, such as medic and intelligence officer, in battalions, which are closer to the fighting and were previously considered too dangerous for women.

The changes mainly affect the Army and Marine Corps. Women would still be prohibited from serving in infantry, armor and special operations units.

A growing number of American women are joining the U.S. Armed Forces to serve in an ever wider array of duties.  In the past decade, they have eroded one of the last remaining barriers in the military by entering the combat zone.  There has been strong support for women in this role, but there is also resistance.

Chris Hanson, professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, says the media coverage of the women in service is usually unfair.  “Women in the military are shown to be either too vulnerable and too weak or somehow too strange and aberrant,” says Hanson. But he says too much focus on sex scandals, rape and other difficulties gives the impression that women hinder rather then contribute to the success of the armed forces. Hanson says such reports feed the stereotypes which slow the progress of service women.

Yet American military women have come a long way since World War Two when 150-thousand joined the Women’s Army Corps. These were the first to serve in the US Army in posts other than nurses.  Today women make up fifteen percent of the armed forces, says Hanson, and can serve in most areas. “When the draft ended in the early 1970’s, the military needed person power.  And they went out and started to recruit women and they opened up a lot of jobs to women that earlier had been closed to them in the military.  So women ended up by now doing all kinds of specializations, many of them combat related, although they are still kept out of infantry, tanks, artillery.” 

Until the Iraq War, scant public attention was paid to this progress.  But the close-up television coverage of Iraq battlefields has drawn attention to the number of women soldiers. Roughly one in seven Americans serving in Iraq is female. Close to thirty have died, most in combat.

   

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public policy organization specializing in military issues says “We have never seen so many female soldiers.  We know that many of them are married. They are mothers. Some of them are single mothers – great numbers of them. And we are sending them to fight our wars in a way that is unprecedented, not just in American history, but in history around the world.”  Donnelly says many Americans are understandably upset to see women so close to enemy lines. She notes that a specially appointed presidential commission examined the issue of women serving in close combat in 1992 and found that presence may indeed hinder rather than improve troops’ readiness.

“Women are not as tall, as strong.  They don’t have as much upper body strength as men do. So to put the load of body armor, for instance, on a female soldier, is a much greater load on her proportionately than it is on men. In every test that’s ever been done in Britain as well as the United states and in Israel it has been found that the physical differences really do put women at a disadvantage, and it is unwise to have them therefore in land combat units.” Donnelly, who was a member of the presidential commission, says the case for women in combat is based on the concept of equal opportunity, which is an important American value, but not applicable to the armed forces. 

“I can summarize a huge body of information by saying this simply: female soldiers do not have an equal opportunity to survive or to help fellow soldiers survive in a combat environment.” Still, some countries, including the Netherlands, Canada and Denmark have lifted all restrictions on women serving in the military.  Hanson says a similar trend will continue in the US armed forces.  “I think that the controversies now are what other types of jobs they’ll be allowed to have. Will women be allowed to be in the artillery, which requires less physical strength than being in the infantry?  Will they be allowed to be in tanks, which in theory could be operated by someone with less physical strength just as an airplane can? I think special forces in the infantry are going be the toughest nuts to crack and they might never be cracked."

But as Donnelly points out, countries that have removed all restrictions on women in service have not engaged in combat substantially since World War Two.  The United States has.  “We are the nation that has taken on the bad guys and we do so in the best way that we can. We provide, of course, career opportunities, but that's not our primary objective.  The military is there to defend the country.  Careers are important, but when there is a conflict with the needs of the military, then military necessity should come first.”

When national security is at stake, most Americans would agree that the need to maintain a strong military must take precedence over concerns about equal opportunity.  Some believe that one does not exclude the other, citing historic examples from  Joan of Arc to modern day women veterans.