History & Innovation: Women in the Military

Join the Intrepid Museum as we share stories of history and innovation. The series will feature book talks, film screenings, and panel discussions highlighting historical impacts and their connections to current events and contemporary experiences.

This month, the Intrepid Museum and the Metropolitan Opera have teamed up for a behind-the-scenes program featuring its newest opera, Grounded. A special performance begins the evening, followed by a panel discussion featuring decorated female officers and artists reflecting on how work affects their domestic life, the roles of service to one’s country and one’s home, and the challenges of volleying identities between service and domestic life.

Doors open at 6:30pm, program begins at 7:00pm.
(Guests must arrive no later than 7:00pm).

Light refreshments will be served.

Pre-registration is required for this free program.

All event attendees receive a special offer to attend Grounded at the Met, running from Sep 23 – Oct 19, 2024.

Panelists:

Lieutenant Colonel Tammy Barlette is the founder of Athena’s Voice, a speaking collective featuring female pilots from around the United States as well as the founder and CEO of Crosscheck Mental Performance Training. She herself is a fighter pilot who served in the Air Force for over 20 years, retiring in September of 2018 as a Lieutenant Colonel. She has flown multiple aircraft, to include the T-37 Tweet, T-38 Talon, A-10 Warthog, MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper, accumulating more than 3000 total flying hours and over 1500 hours of combat support time assisting and protecting troops on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan. She is also a graduate of the prestigious US Air Force Weapons School and has a Master of Arts in Christian Ministry. Tammy is married to a Federal Agent and has three children.

Jeanine Tesori is a composer known for both opera and musical theatre, Tesori has 5 Tony Award nominations amongst a wide output of musicals, notably winning the Tony Award for Best Original Score in 2015 for Fun Home. She is also the first female composer to have two original musicals running at the same time on Broadway. In the operatic world, Tesori has been commissioned by the Glimmerglass Festival twice and shares the title of being the first female commissioned composer at the Metropolitan Opera alongside Missy Mazzoli.

Emily D’Angelo was hailed by the New York Times as “one of the world’s special young singers,” and has continued her meteoric rise and firmly established herself as one of the most exciting and critically acclaimed artists of her generation. Called “wondrous and powerful“ by The NY Times for her recent US recital debut, the mezzo-soprano is the first and only vocalist to have been presented with the Leonard Bernstein Award from the Schleswig Holstein Festival. A 2020 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist, one of Canada’s “Top 30 Under 30” Classical Musicians, and WQXR NYC Public Radio’s “40 Under 40” singers to watch, D’Angelo made her stage debut, at only 21 years of age.. She now stars as Jess in The Metropolitan Opera’s production of Grounded, opening the ‘24-’25 season on September 23.

Moderator:

Dana H. Born, PH.D. (Brigadier General, USAF Retired) recently transitioned as the Faculty Chair for the Senior Executive Fellows (SEF) program at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) of Government, previously served as the Co-Director for the HKS’s Center for Public Leadership and Faculty Advisor for the Black Family Graduate Fellowship for Veterans and the National Security Fellows program. She is a retired Brigadier General with thirty years of service in the United States Air Force having served as a military commander in times of peace, conflict, and crises. Prior to Harvard she served eleven years at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) as the Dean of the Faculty and Department Chair for the Behavioral Sciences and Leadership Department. Dr. Born serves on a wide variety public, private and nonprofit Boards and is a Distinguished Fellow in Moral Leadership for the HOW Institute for Society. Her keen sense of human/institutional behavior and military background serve as the focus of her research interests in character-based leadership development, organizational behavior/ethics, human and social capacity, and performance, change and risk management, strategic alignment, inclusive excellence, diversity, decision-making and gender related issues. She enjoys skiing, hiking, cooking, and traveling… especially visiting her two active-duty daughters.

About the opera, Grounded:

Emily D’Angelo portrays Jess in Jeanine Tesori’s Grounded, photographed by Paola Kudacki. Jess, a hot-shot fighter pilot has an unplanned pregnancy, taking her out of the cockpit and landing her in Las Vegas, where she operates a Reaper drone from halfway around the world. Jess reflects the mental health challenges that follow combat experience and the morality of death rained down by remote control.

Two-time Tony Award-winning composer Jeanine Tesori’s powerful new opera Grounded, commissioned by the Met and based on librettist George Brant’s acclaimed play, wrestles with the ethical quandaries and psychological toll of 21st-century warfare. Mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, one of opera’s most compelling young stars, portrays Jess, a hot-shot fighter pilot whose unplanned pregnancy takes her out of the cockpit and lands her in Las Vegas, operating a Reaper drone halfway around the world. As she struggles to adjust to this new way of doing battle, she fights to maintain her sanity, and her soul, as she is called to rain down death by remote control. Michael Mayer’s high-tech staging, using a vast array of LED screens, presents a variety of perspectives on the action, including the drone’s predatory view from high above.