Monday’s premier of the 1991 opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, could be the most controversial in decades at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, with large-scale protests planned outside the venue.
Written by John Adams, the libretto tells the story of Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish American who was killed by members of the Palestine Liberation Front who hijacked a cruise ship in 1985 in the Mediterranean.
The opera is considered a masterpiece, but the Met’s decision to stage it has drawn ire as critics have charged that the opera, which gives voice to the Palestinian hijackers, glorifies terrorism and even promotes anti-Semitism.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organisa-tion fighting anti-Semitism, called the opera “highly controversial and deeply flawed”.
“The opera juxtaposes the plight of the Palestinian people with the cold-blooded murder of an innocent, disabled American Jew, and attempts to take this brutal act of terrorism and rationalise, legitimise and explain it,” the organization said.
However, the ADL statement defended the opera against charges of anti-Semitism, as other critics have suggested.
ADL said the staging in New York was a compromise, as the Met scrapped its original plans to simulcast the premier in 66 countries, in response to concerns that the opera could promote anti-Israel sentiments in come countries.
Several politicians are expected to be at the demonstration, including former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who said he would protest the opera because he believes it presents “a distorted view of history,” according to The New York Times.
Director Tom Morris defended the production against “a profound misapprehension” that it condoned the Klinghoffer slaying: “It dramatises terrorism. It does not condone it,” he told The New York Times. “It does address a subject which is of global importance, possibly the dominant political conundrum of our era. Obviously, (that) makes it controversial in lots of ways, but it also makes it very, very important as an opera.” – Sapa-dpa