The Metropolitan Opera's 2024-25 season will take flight September 23 with the Met premiere of Jeanine Tesori and George Brant's Grounded, directed by Michael Mayer. Get a first look at the new production below.
Based on Brant's play of the same name, Grounded tells the story of Jess, a fighter pilot who is grounded due to an unexpected pregnancy, and subsequently reassigned to piloting lethal drones remotely. Mezzo-soprano Emily D'Angelo stars as Jess, the role played by Anne Hathaway in the play's 2015 Off-Broadway production at The Public Theater.
Emily D'Angelo in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Emily D'Angelo and Ben Bliss in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Greer Grimsley (above), Emily D'Angelo, and Ben Bliss in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Ben Bliss and Emily D'Angelo in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Ben Bliss, Lucy LoBue, and Emily D'Angelo in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Ben Bliss and Emily D'Angelo in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Emily D'Angelo in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Ben Bliss, Emily D'Angelo, and Lucy LoBue in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Emily D'Angelo and Kyle Miller in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Emily D'Angelo and Kyle Miller in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
Emily D'Angelo and Kyle Miller in Grounded at the Metropolitan Opera
The cast, expanded from the original one-woman play, also features tenor Ben Bliss as Eric, baritone Kyle Miller as the Sensor, and bass-baritone Greer Grimsley as the Commander. Soprano Ellie Dehn plays "Also Jess," a character who embodies Jess' dissociated self. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts.
Mayer's production features sets by Mimi Lien, costumes by Tom Broecker, lighting by Kevin Adams, projections by Jason H. Thompson and Kaitlyn Pietras, sound by Palmer Hefferan, and choreography by David Neumann. Paul Cremo serves as dramaturg.
Grounded is the first opera by a female composer to be commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, and the third to be produced there, following Kaija Saariaho's L'Amour de Loin in 2016 and Ethel Smyth's Der Wald in 1903. Missy Mazzoli's Lincoln in the Bardo, another Met commission, is currently slated for the 2025-26 season.
Performances of Grounded run September 23-October 19. For more information, visit MetOpera.org.
