ArteFact

Commissioned for the opening of the 2024–25 Metropolitan Opera season, Grounded is an adaptation of George Brant’s widely acclaimed play of the same name. Created and composed by Jeanine Tesori, the opera was originally performed at the Washington National Opera in 2023 with Jess played by mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo and tenor Ben Bliss as Jess’s husband Eric. The opera serves as a powerful commentary on power and those who both wield it and are controlled by it in turn.

“The real protagonist of history is the beggar.” In sharing this insight, Luigi Giussani underscores that real significance lies in the connection and encounter between individuals in their mutual humility, need, and search for fulfillment.

Living, the 2022 British period drama directed by Oliver Hermanus, is a film adapted from Kurosawa’s Ikiru (1952), itself inspired by Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Like its predecessors, the movie explores a middle-aged bureaucrat’s reaction to his terminal diagnosis (Mr. Williams portrayed by Bill Nighy in a Best Actor Oscar-nominated performance) as he struggles to discern if he has lived a meaningful life and, if not, what he needs to do to correct things. We will see that it is only through an attitude of vulnerability and humility—that of the beggar—that the other is lead to response to these needs.