Metropolitan Opera – Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer. October 20, 2014.

Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center.  Balcony (Seat C113, $87.50).

Story.  The cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked by four Palestinians after it left Alexandria.  The one hostage they killed was Leon Klinghoffer in a wheelchair.  The story is told as a recollection from various people: the captain, the first officer, a grandmother and her grandchild, a Swiss woman who hid in her cabin, and a British Dancer.  After the terrorists disembarked at Cairo, Marilyn Klinghoffer was told of Leon’s death.  The opera ends with Marilyn expressing her sorrow.

Conductor – David Robertson.  The Captain – Paulo Szot, The First Officer – Christopher Feigum, Leon Klinghoffer – Alan Opie, Marilyn Klinghoffer – Michaela Martens, Swiss Grandmother – Maria Zifchak, Austrian Woman – Theodora Hanslowe, British Dancer – Kate Miller-Heidke, Molqi – Sean Panikkar, Mamoud – Aubrey Allicok, Rambo – Ryan Speedo Green, Omar – Jesse Kovarsky, Palestinian Woman – Maya Lahyani.

With the passage of about 30 years, I had only a vague memory of the event until the Met announced this opera for this season.  Wanting to get some modern opera in, we booked this as part of this season’s subscription.  Other commitments got us to make a couple of exchanges before settling on tonight’s performance.  Thus we got to see the premiere performance of the opera at the Met.

During the summer the Met announced that it was cancelling a live broadcast of a performance because of the controversy it generated.  I didn’t explore the reasons for the cancellation (not that people would really tell the truth with these things,) but attributed it to political correctness to not offend Palestinians.  It therefore came as a surprise as the premiere date drew closer that the groups most vocal against the opera are Jewish groups.  The big issue is they feel the opera puts Palestinians and Jews on the same footing, thus committing the sin of “moral equivalence.”

I do have some strongly held world views, but I have tried to avoid talking about those in this blog, since it is really more about the arts and the enjoyment thereof.  However, a visit to Bethlehem in 2012 punctuated for me the hardship Palestinians live under.  Of course people with different political leanings would attribute different reasons for why this is so, and in no way should such despair justify terrorism, yet I also feel talking about their hopelessness is not automatically anti-Semitism, and having a chorus of exiled Palestinians right next to one of exiled Jews does not equate to moral equivalence.

It was difficult to avoid talking about the protest at Lincoln Center at the event.  One of speakers against the opera was former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who said as a lover of opera he liked the opera as a music composition but denounced it for not being factually accurate and damaging.  A few hundred people gathered in Dante Park across the street, many wearing signs condemning Peter Gelb, the general manager.  News reports say many people in wheelchairs showed up to protest, although we didn’t get close enough to the crowd to see too many of them.  Security managed to cordon off all entrances into Lincoln Center Plaza (both efficient, and disturbing, if you think about it), only people with tickets were allowed in.  Of course one could tell the officer that it was a “will call” and get through.  Some people did get in wearing placards with various statements.  There was no attempt to remove them; instead they were followed by guards a couple of steps behind.

Perhaps it was important to have some level of security in the off-chance that things got out of hand.  But I thought the police handled it well.  Be there, let them know there are limits, and to the extent possible, let it be.  They would even let people into the auditorium with statements taped to their bodies.  During the performance there was one episode with someone shouting to the effect “The murder of Klinghoffer won’t be forgotten,” and I read that one person was arrested.  Otherwise the protests during the show were limited to booing when others were applauding.   Frankly the booing could be attributed to displeasure at the music or its performance.

I certainly support one’s right to protest, even at some inconvenience to others – and the inconvenience is minimal in this instance.  I do feel the animosity towards the opera is mis-directed.  Unless they already harbor these thoughts, few people would leave with thoughts of moral equivalence and justified terrorism after seeing this opera.  Indeed the sympathy is with the Klinghoffers and other people on the hijacked ship.  Left alone, the opera would just be a docudrama of that horrible event.  The protests probably got more people to try to examine the different angles to the story.  In the Playbill there is an article by the two daughters of the Klinghoffers that ends with the accusation that the opera “sullies the memory of a fine, principled, sweet man …”  I certainly can’t begin to appreciate the pain of losing one’s father that way, but having his memory sullied by the opera is the last thought that came to my mind when the opera concluded.

Also in the Playbill is a listing of the performance history since its debut in Brussels in March 1991.  Indeed it was performed in New York several times, by the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Julliard.  Evidently there was no such brouhaha during those runs.

The story is told with narration by the principals.  Juxtaposed throughout are “re-enactments” of various scenes, some quite chaotic.  Most of the action took place on the ship deck, with various video projections depicting the ship’s wake, radar screen, and passage of time (different positions of the sun.)  There were also instances that the concrete slabs were used to depict the wall at the West Bank.  In addition to the two Exiled choruses that started the show, there were three others: Ocean, Dessert, and Day.  These choruses were highlights of the opera, complex yet nice tunes that conveyed the sentiments well.

I don’t know Adams’s music well enough to be able to characterize it.  We had the (mis)fortune of sitting around some sophisticated music connoisseurs.  The two on our right were talking about how some adaptations were made for this Met run.  More interestingly, the two behind us compared John Adams to Philip Glass.  Perhaps it is indeed the case, perhaps it was the power of suggestion, I did hear some Philip Glass, especially in Act 3, in that a relatively simple theme  repeated over and over while migrating forward.  Adams’s construction sounded more complex though.  Oftentimes the melodies, such as they were, were in the orchestra rather than in the vocals.

We were practically in the same seats we had last Friday for Carmen.  There I was amazed at how strong all the singers sounded.  Tonight the voices were quite a bit weaker.  The opera ended with Marilyn’s solo after she learned of Klinghoffer’s death.  It is supposed to be heart-wrenching, but somehow the sentiments didn’t come through.

Given the chaos that was happening on the stage, Robertson was impressive in delivering a crisp performance.  One got the strong impression that the performance progressed in exactly the way he wanted it to.

It is difficult to compare this opera with other (relatively) modern operas I have seen (Shostakovich and Glass come to mind.)  I suspect without the politics, I would walk away equally puzzled.

The curtain call was met with thunderous applause, much more than your usual modern opera where many were probably busy scratching their heads instead.  Even I did my share of heavy clapping to show appreciation of the skills of the artists and support for the organization to stage such a controversial event.  Being a Met premiere, Adams and the rest of the production crew all came on stage.  I caught a glimpse of Robertson, he seemed to have aged considerably since the last time I saw him.  (He was born in 1958, a relatively young guy.)

The New YorkTimes review is one of the longest I have seen.  It has a good description of the specifics of the opera.  The reviewer calls the final monologue “overwhelming,” quoting some of the poignant passages in the libretto. Did he read the libretto in advance, or does he have such keen appreciation of poetry?  Also, one adaptation made for this production is the actual murder of Leon Klinghoffer on stage.

All was quiet by the time we left.