The Death of Klinghoffer is an American opera, with music by John Adams to an English-language libretto by Alice Goodman. First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestinian Liberation Front in 1985, and the hijackers' murder of a 69-year-old Jewish-American wheelchair-using passenger, Leon Klinghoffer.
The concept of the opera originated with theatre director Peter Sellars,Christiansen, Rupert, "Breaking Taboos". Opera, 54(5), 543–548 (May 2003) who was a major collaborator, as was choreographer Mark Morris. It was commissioned by five American and European opera companies, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The opera has generated controversy, including allegations by Klinghoffer's two daughters and others that the opera is antisemitic and glorifies terrorism. The work's creators and others have disputed these criticisms.
Performance history
Theatre director Peter Sellars developed the concept of this opera and was a major collaborator, as was choreographer Mark Morris. The opera was originally commissioned through a consortium of six entities: the Brussels opera company La Monnaie, the San Francisco Opera, the Opéra de Lyon in France, the Los Angeles Festival (separate from that city's opera company), the Glyndebourne Festival in England, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The first performance took place at the Théatre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels, Belgium, on March 19, 1991, directed by Sellars. The next month, the Lyon premiere took place. This was followed by a Nonesuch studio recording in that French city with the same cast.
The first US performance was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on September 5, 1991.
Controversy ensued. An opening scene depicting a suburban family, the Rumors, was permanently cut from the score on grounds that it caused offense due to antisemitic stereotypes. The Nonesuch recording, released in 1992, does not include this music. Because of the reaction to the subject matter and philosophy of the opera, planned stagings at Glyndebourne and in Los Angeles were cancelled.
When the original production was staged by San Francisco Opera in November 1992, the Jewish Information League mounted protests."Art Attack: John Adams, composer", New Statesman (London), October 17, 2005: the anonymous contributor describes the opposition as "Jewish Information League", although there is no source for a group of that name. The first staging in Germany took place in 1997 in Nürnberg, followed by a second German production at the Opernhaus Wuppertal in 2005.
Another European production was given in February 2001, in Helsinki at Finnish National Opera. The first complete UK performance was a 2002 concert in London by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Penny Woolcock directed a British television version of the opera, in revised form, for Channel 4, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adams; its soundtrack was made in 2001, the telecast aired in 2003, and a DVD was released on Decca in 2004. The first Australasian performance took place in February 2005 at the Auckland Festival, New Zealand. The first fully staged UK production was given in August 2005 at the Edinburgh Festival by Scottish Opera.
The opera received a new production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 2003. The Curtis Institute of Music, through its Curtis Opera Theatre and Curtis Symphony Orchestra, gave a performance in Philadelphia in February 2005. Four years later, students at the Juilliard Opera Center performed a semi-staged concert version with Adams conducting.
The Death of Klinghoffer received its second full American staging in June 2011 at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, conducted by Michael Christie, directed by James Robinson, and starring Christopher Magiera as the Captain and Brian Mulligan as Klinghoffer. The opera received its first London production on February 25, 2012, starring Alan Opie as Klinghoffer and Christopher Magiera as the Captain, conducted by Baldur Brönnimann and staged by Tom Morris at the English National Opera, in a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera. In June 2014, the Met's general manager Peter Gelb announced that after discussions with the Anti-Defamation League the planned Live in HD transmission of the production would be cancelled."Met cancels broadcast amidst anti-Semitism row" by Clive Paget, Limelight, June 18, 2014 The opera was set for seven performances at the Met in October and November 2014 and performed as scheduled.The Death of Klinghoffer, Metropolitan Opera. Accessed October 21, 2014
After being dropped from production by the Los Angeles Opera, the opera received its Los Angeles area premiere in March 2014 with Long Beach Opera, conducted by Andreas Mitisek and staged by James Robinson.2014 performance information on Long Beach Opera website
Roles +Role"Adams, John – The Death of Klinghoffer (1990) 140': Opera in two acts", Boosey & Hawkes; includes summary, instrumentation, critical observations, work detailsVoice typePremiere cast, March 19, 1991Conductor: Kent NaganoThe CaptainbaritoneJames MaddalenaThe First Officerbass-baritoneThomas HammonsSwiss Grandmothermezzo-sopranoJanice FeltyMolqitenorThomas YoungMamoudbaritoneEugene PerryAustrian Womanmezzo-sopranoJanice FeltyLeon KlinghofferbaritoneSanford Sylvan"Rambo"bass-baritoneThomas HammonsBritish Dancing Girlmezzo-sopranoJanice FeltyOmarmezzo-sopranoStephanie FriedmanMarilyn KlinghoffercontraltoSheila NadlerChorus, dancers
Synopsis
Prologue The prologue consists of two choruses, the "Chorus of Exiled Palestinians" and the "Chorus of Exiled Jews", each of which is a general reflection about the respective peoples and their history.
Act 1 Scene 1
The unnamed captain of the MS Achille Lauro recalls the events of the hijacking. Prior to that, most of the passengers had disembarked in Egypt for a tour of the Pyramids, and the ship set out to sea to return later for the touring passengers. The hijackers had boarded during the disembarkation. When the hijackers commandeer the ship, the passengers still on board are collected in the ship's restaurant. The narrative shifts to a Swiss grandmother, traveling with her grandson while the boy's parents are touring the pyramids. The ship's first officer, given the fictitious name of Giordano Bruno, informs the Captain that terrorists are on the ship and one waiter has been wounded. The Captain and First Officer try to keep the passengers calm. Molqi, one of the hijackers, explains the situation to the passengers at gunpoint. The Captain and Molqi have an encounter, where the Captain orders food and drink to be brought, and offers to let Molqi choose the food for the Captain to eat.
Scene 2
Following the "Ocean Chorus", another hijacker, Mamoud, keeps guard over the Captain. Mamoud recalls his youth and songs he listened to on the radio. The Captain and Mamoud have a dialogue, in which the Captain pleads that individuals on the two sides of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict could meet and try to understand each other. Mamoud dismisses this idea. During this scene is a passenger narrative by the Austrian Woman, who locked herself in her cabin and remained hidden throughout the hijacking. Act 1 ends with the "Night Chorus."
Act 2 The "Hagar Chorus", relating to the Islamic story of Hagar and the Angel and the Biblical story of Hagar and Ishmael is sung. It represents the beginnings of Arab–Israeli tension, of which the hijacking is one historical result.
Scene 1
Molqi is frustrated that he has received no reply to his demands. Mamoud threatens all of the passengers with death. Leon Klinghoffer sings, saying that he normally likes to avoid trouble and live simply and decently, but going on to denounce the hijackers. Another hijacker, called "Rambo", responds in harsh terms about Jews and Americans. The passenger, the British Dancing Girl, recalls how well the fourth hijacker, Omar, treated her and the other passengers, for example, letting them have cigarettes. Omar sings of his desire for martyrdom for his cause. At the end of the scene, Omar and Molqi have a dispute, and Molqi takes Klinghoffer away. The "Desert Chorus" follows.
Scene 2
Marilyn Klinghoffer talks about disability, illness, and death. She thinks that her husband Leon was taken to the ship's hospital, but he was shot, off-stage. The hijackers have ordered the Captain to say they will kill another passenger every fifteen minutes. Instead, the Captain offers himself as the sole next person to be killed. Molqi appears and says that Leon Klinghoffer is dead. The "Aria of the Falling Body (Gymnopédie)", sung by Klinghoffer, follows.
The "Day Chorus" links scene 2 to scene 3.
Scene 3
After the hijackers have surrendered and the surviving passengers have disembarked safely in port, the Captain remains to tell Marilyn Klinghoffer about her husband's death. She reacts with sorrow and rage toward the Captain, for what she sees as his accommodation of the hijackers. Her final sentiment is that she wished that she could have died in her husband's place.
Musical analysis The general style of the opera's music resembles that of Adams' minimalist music period, in the vein also of music by Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Intervallic relationships such as affekt are used to evoke certain emotions. The drama is portrayed primarily in long monologues by individual characters, with commentary by the chorus, which does not take part in the action.
Both Adams and Sellars have acknowledged the affinity of the opera's dramatic structure to the sacred oratorios of Johann Sebastian Bach, in particular his Passions. The plot of the opera does not contain a detailed re-enactment of the events of the hijacking and the murder of Klinghoffer; the major events are not directly portrayed on stage and occur between the opera's staged scenes. The artists originally considered the opera as more of a "dramatic meditation" or "reflection", in the manner of an oratorio, rather than a conventional narrative opera driven by plot.
Based on this aspect, the opera has been criticized as undramatic and static, particularly in act 1, whereas act 2 is more "conventional" in terms of operatic narrative. In defence of this unconventional structure, John Ginman has analysed the particular dramaturgy and structure of the opera.
The opera's choral passages have been performed and recorded separately as Choruses from Klinghoffer.
Controversy and allegations of antisemitism Controversy surrounded the American premiere and other productions in the years which followed. Some critics and audience members condemned the production as antisemitic and appearing to be sympathetic to the hijackers. Adams, Goodman, and Sellars repeatedly claimed that they were trying to give equal voice to both Israelis and Palestinians with respect to the political background.
Lisa Klinghoffer and Ilsa Klinghoffer, the daughters of Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer, anonymously attended the 1991 U.S. premiere of the opera in New York City. Afterward the Klinghoffer family released the following statement about the opera: "We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the coldblooded murder of our father as the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic."