MUSIC MOMMELLAH
LB Opera
Controversy on Purim?
Long Beach Opera will present the Southern California premiere of what may be the most controversial opera of the twentieth century, The Death of Klinghoffer. The opera will be performed on March 16 and March 22 at the Terrace Theater.
Having been labeled everything from being "Pro-Terrorist" to "Anti-Semitic" , the opera deals with the 1985 highjacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship by 4 Palestinian terrorists and the subsequent murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish passenger from the United States. It seems an ironic coincidence that the premiere performance of the opera will take place on the Jewish holiday of Purim, when Jews commemorate yet another time in history when someone sought to exterminate them.
The opera, by John Adams, was commissioned by a consortium of 5 opera companies in 1989. One of those opera companies, LA Opera, then cancelled the opera from its own performance schedule amidst charges that it was anti-Semitic.
There seem to be clear instances in The Death of Klinghoffer that invite charges of anti-Semitism. In the opening, Choruses of Exiled Palestinians and Exiled Jews, Palestinians sing, “My father’s house was razed in 1948, when the Israelis passed over our street,” a re-casting of history without providing any sort of accurate context.
During the second act, a Palestinian woman who is presented as Abraham’s concubine Hagar, urges her son Ishmael (morphed into a Palestinian hijacker) to take vengeance on the first Jew available to kill. She sings, "Do not grow old in years like those Jews. My heart will break if you do not walk in Paradise within two days."
University of California musicologist Richard Taruskin said, "If terrorism is to be defeated, world public opinion has to be turned decisively against it, no longer romanticizing terrorists as Robin Hoods and no longer idealizing their deeds as rough justice...The Death of Klinghoffer is anti-American, anti-Semitic."
Death of Klinghoffer composer, John Adams, responded to Taruskin's criticism, saying, "In this country, there is almost no option for the other side, no space for the Palestinian point of view.”
The controversial opera is likely to stay in the news this year, as it is scheduled to be performed in the fall by the New York Metropolitan Opera.
Note: Long Beach Opera was given multiple opportunities to comment for this article, and declined to do so.
LBJL March 2014 | www.lbjewishlife.com
Leon Klinghoffer,
aboad the
Achille Lauro