The Death of Klinghoffer
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| Operas by John Adams |
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Nixon in China (1987) |
The Death of Klinghoffer is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams to an English libretto by the poet Alice Goodman. It was first performed at the Théatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium, in 1991.
The opera tells the true story of the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the resulting death of Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer. It was the center of a great controversy when it was performed in the United States in late 1991 and early 1992. A British Channel 4 television version, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adams, was directed by Penny Woolcock in 2003. There was also a performance by Scottish Opera at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival.
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[edit] The Music
The Death of Klinghoffer is written in a style similar to the minimalist music made popular by composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Adams is inspired by the sacred oratorios of Johann Sebastian Bach, in which 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. The monologues occasionally overlap during moments of heightened drama, adding to the confusion of the scene.
The opera's choral passages have been performed and recorded separately as Choruses from Klinghoffer.
[edit] The Klinghoffer Controversy
In a page-long article in the December 9, 2001 New York Times, a noted musicologist, Richard Taruskin of The University of California denounced the opera and accused John Adams of "romanticizing terrorists." As he saw it, the opera tended to give many listeners the impression that the Palestinian terrorists were presented as men who were fighting for a noble cause[1] received critical responses [2]. Many people held the belief that the opera was anti-Semitic, and it was picketed by members of the Jewish Information League at its premiere in San Francisco, California. After September 11, 2001, the work was also criticized as being anti-American, as Taruskin stated that "If terrorism is to be defeated, world public opinion has to be turned decisively against it . . . no longer romanticising terrorists as Robin Hoods and no longer idealising their deeds as rough poetic justice".
Fans of the work tend to disagree with this assessment, since however much sympathy the audience is led to feel for one or two of the hijackers, it cannot help but condemn the terrorist action as a whole. Klinghoffer himself is murdered point-blank on stage, and his wife's horror upon finding out about his murder is conveyed viscerally to the audience as a final impression. Those terrorists who describe their history and motives speak in absolutes of morality, and any connection the audience may feel to their humanity is quickly drowned in words that define the absence of humanity:
- "The day that my enemy and I sit peacefully, each putting his cause and working towards peace — that day our hope dies, and I shall die, too."
Many critics of the work feel that simply by allowing terrorists to be portrayed as human beings on stage, Adams has gone too far.[citation needed] Supporters of the work express that by showing the audience the terrorists as human beings rather than two-dimensional villains, Adams forces the audience to confront the underlying causes of violence, rather than blame only the brainwashed children of that violence[3].
[edit] Roles
| Role | Voice type | Premiere Cast, March 19, 1991 (Conductor: Kent Nagano) |
|---|---|---|
| The Captain of the Achille Lauro | baritone | James Maddalena |
| The First Officer | bass-baritone | Thomas Hammons |
| 'Rambo', a terrorist | bass-baritone | Thomas Hammons |
| Swiss grandmother | mezzo-soprano | Janice Felty |
| Austrian woman | mezzo-soprano | Janice Felty |
| British dancing girl | mezzo-soprano | Janice Felty |
| Molqi, a terrorist | tenor | Thomas Young |
| Mamoud, a terrorist | baritone | Eugene Perry |
| Leon Klinghoffer | baritone | Sanford Sylvan |
| Omar, a terrorist | mezzo-soprano | Stephanie Friedman |
| Marilyn Klinghoffer | contralto | Sheila Nader |
[edit] References
- ^ Richard Taruskin, "MUSIC; Music's Dangers And The Case For Control", The New York Times, December 9, 2001 Retrieved 9 April 2008
- ^ Mark Swed, "MUSIC'S DANGERS; Other Things as Well", The New York Times, December 23, 2001 Retrieved 9 Apr 2008
- ^ Interview with John Adams in "John Adams, A Portrait and A Concert of American Music", DVD-Video, Arthaus Musik, 2003.
