Much fuss is being made around Jeanine Tessori’s ‘Grounded’ which launched the Met’s season with a gala premiere last night, the first woman composer to occupy the first-night slot.
The opera is a cut-down version of the work that had a run of six performances at the Kennedy Center a year ago.
About 45 minutes have been cut and ten minutes of new music added. Music director Yannick was unsure of the changes: “I was kind of defending the composer as we would do today if Verdi was alive or Donizetti: ‘The music is perfect as it is. Let’s not cut,’” Nézet-Séguin said. “It was fascinating to see that the composer herself was more like: `No, this needs to be cut because it’s detracting from what I want in the story line.’”
Fellow-Canadian Emily D’Angelo sang the title role.
Reviews to follow.
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