On Monday, October 20th several hundred protestors surrounded the Metropolitan Opera. Some held signs declaring, “The Met Opera glorifies Terrorism,” while others sat in rented wheelchairs with placards that read, “I am Leon Klinghoffer.” Operagoers navigated the sea of protestors while being faced with taunts of “Shame!”
The recent premiere of the opera The Death of Klinghoffer at the Metropolitan Opera House that monday has spurred a host of reactions from the general public—ranging from outraged calls claiming the play glorifies terrorism, to others proclaiming it a masterful piece of art.
The opera, directed by Tom Morris and with music by John Adams, is based on the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship by members of the Palestinian Liberation Front and the subsequent murder of passenger Leon Klinghoffer, a wheel-chair confined American Jew on board.
Protestors of the opera based on Klinghoffer’s tragic death claim that it justifies what can only be deemed a terrorist act by presenting the Palestinian people as an oppressed nation. Many condemn the opera as an apology for terrorism. With an opening chorus entitled, “The Chorus of Exiled Palestinians,” and lines such as “Wherever poor men are gathered, they can find Jews getting fat,” it is not difficult to understand why the opera has been received with such heated reactions denouncing it for its anti-Semitism.
In 1985, Leon Klinghoffer, his wife, and some friends were vacationing aboard the Achille Lauro cruise ship, sailing around the Mediterranean. Klinghoffer, a New Yorker, was 69 years old and confined to a wheelchair after having suffered two strokes. Unbeknownst to the passengers, the ship also carried four terrorist members of the Palestinian Liberation Front who had planned to hijack the cruise ship. As the ship sailed off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, the terrorists seized control, demanding the release of fifty Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and ordering the captain to sail towards Syria. If the terrorist demands were not met, the passengers, then hostages, would be killed. Leon Klinghoffer was the first and only hostage to be murdered. He was shot in the head and then dumped overboard in his wheelchair.
The opera was first produced in Brussels in March of 1991, and reached the American stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music the following September. It has returned to the Met stage in co-production with the English National Opera of London.
Among those attending Monday’s protest was former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani. According to an article in The Daily Beast, Giuliani decried the opera for offering a “distorted view of history” and called it “factually inaccurate and historically damaging.”
Stern College’s very own Speech and Drama Professor, Reuven Russell, also attended Monday’s protest. “The opera, arts, and musicals are powerful mediums that move people,” he said in an interview. “It’s very clear that what you do on stage has the potential to move people, and that can be used for good or the opposite.”
Professor Russell questioned why the opera is called the Death of Klinghoffer and not the murder of Klinghoffer. And regarding John Adams, the opera’s composer, who claimed that he was surprised by all the protestations, Professor Russell said, “He’s being intellectually and artistically insincere by saying he doesn’t understand all the uproar.”
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, herself a Jew, attended the opera on opening night and concluded that the opera “is a most sympathetic portrayal of the Klinghoffers…there was nothing anti-Semitic about the opera.”
In an interview with The New York Times Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater, echoed Ginsberg. “It is not only permissible for the Met to do this piece—it’s required for the Met to do the piece. It is a powerful and important opera,” he said.
Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, the daughters of Leon Klinghoffer, have voiced their anger with the opera. “The opera rationalizes, romanticizes and legitimizes the terrorist murder of our father,” they wrote in an article published by Haaretz on October 20th.
The opera has been publicized by the Met with the slogan, “See it. Then decide.” What will you do?
The Death of Klinghoffer runs through November 15th at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center.