arts & entertainment
High Drama Over Klinghoffer Opera
Metropolitan Opera's move fuels lofty debate
about the limits of art.
Stewart Ain
I New York Jewish Week
ohn Adams' contemporary
opera, The Death of Klinghoffer,
first produced in 1991, has been
called "perhaps the most controversial
opera of the 20th century."
The opera depicts the brutal killing
of Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old dis-
abled Jewish American who was shot in
1985 by four Palestinian hijackers while
aboard the Italian cruise ship Achille
Lauro. His body — still in its wheelchair
— was then hurled overboard.
Last month's decision by the
Metropolitan Opera to cancel its closed-
circuit simulcast of next fall's production
of the opera in 2,000 movie theaters
worldwide (including several in the
Metro Detroit area) — as well as the
radio broadcast — has juxtaposed the
right of artistic freedom against commu-
nal sensitivities.
Nicholas Kenyon, managing direc-
tor of the Barbican Center in London,
Europe's largest performing arts center,
sent a Twitter message calling the Met's
decision "shocking, shortsighted and
indefensible."
But Thane Rosenbaum, a novelist and
Fordham University (New York) law pro-
fessor, welcomed the news.
"I know it is scandalous for a novelist
to say, but to me it was a respectful and
responsible thing to do:' he said.
In a statement explaining the decision,
Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager,
said that although he is convinced the
j
opera is not anti-Semitic, "I've also
become convinced that there is genu-
ine concern in the international Jewish
community that the live transmission
of The Death of Klinghoffer would be
inappropriate at this time of rising anti-
Semitism, particularly in Europe."
The statement said the Met would
proceed with the scheduled eight perfor-
mances of the opera beginning Oct. 20
and that "in deference to the daughters
of Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer, the
Met has agreed to include a message
from them both in the Met's Playbill and
on its website."
The Klinghoffer daughters, Lisa and
Ilsa, wrote a letter to the New York Times
explaining their opposition to the opera
and objecting to a Times' editorial that
lamented the Met's decision and calling
it "a step backward." They said they were
particularly upset that the Times claimed
the opera "gives voice to all sides in this
terrible murder."
They said their father had been
singled out solely because he was Jewish
and that his "memory is trivialized in
an opera that rationalizes terrorism and
tries to find moral equivalence between
the murderers and the murdered.
Imagine if Mr. Adams had written an
opera about the terrorists who carried
out the 9-11 attacks and sought to bal-
ance their worldview with that of those
who perished in the Twin Towers. The
outcry would be immediate and over-
whelming."
(In fact, Adams wrote a choral
"memory" piece, On the Transmigration
of Souls, for orchestra, cho-
rus, children's choir and pre-
recorded tape, commemorating Brian Mulligan as Leon Klinghoffer and Nancy
Maultsby as Marilyn Klinghoffer in the 2011 Opera
the victims of the 9-11 attacks,
Theatre
of Saint Louis production of The Death of
for which he won a Pulitzer
Klinghoffer
Prize in 2003.)
The sisters also dismissed as
an "outrage" the assertion that
the opera is a "work of art" that affords
to the memory of Leon and Marilyn
viewers a chance to debate the Israeli-
Klinghoffer, and it roundly condemns
Palestinian conflict.
his brutal murder. It acknowledges
"These terrorists hijacked an Italian
the dreams and the grievances of not
ship with American tourists and mur-
only the Israeli but also the Palestinian
dered an American Jew. What, pre-
people, and in no form condones or
cisely, did this have to do with Israel?
promotes violence, terrorism or anti-
Absolutely nothing. ... There is never a
Semitism."
justification for terrorism."
He added that the Met's "deeply
Adams, who was unavailable for com-
regrettable decision ... goes far beyond
ment, offered his own explanation of
issues of 'artistic freedom: and ends in
the opera in a video on the Met's Web
promoting the same kind of intolerance
page, saying: "Our opera tries to look
that the opera's detractors claim to be
preventing?'
at the terrorists and the passengers and
see humanity in both of them. And for
Abraham Foxman, national director
some people, that is an egregious mis-
of the Anti-Defamation League and the
take. I don't feel it is. I feel that for all of man who convinced Gelb to cancel the
the brutality and moral wrong that they
simulcasts, said the Met's decision was a
perpetrated in killing this man, they are
compromise.
"I shared with him the sensitivities
still human beings and there still has to
of the children of Klinghoffer and the
be reasons why they did this act. What
[librettist] Alice Goodman and I tried to
concern that if this production played
do is to create a work of art that makes
on its own in the Viennas and Brussels
people feel, and music is ultimately
of the world, it could be used to enhance
about feeling."
attitudes toward Jews at a time when
anti-Semitism is rising," he said.
(Goodman, in her mid-50s, was
raised a Reform Jew. She converted
"He spoke of artistic freedom and the
fact that this is a brilliant musical. ... I
to Christianity in 2006 and is now an
Anglican priest in England.)
would rather it not play anywhere and
In a statement, Adams insisted
he everywhere, and we found a middle
that his opera "accords great dignity
ground."
❑
Jews
Nate Bloom
+1 I Special
to the Jewish News
New On TV
Married premieres at 10 p.m.
Thursday, July 17, on FX. Nat Faxon
and Judy Greer (she grew up in
Redford Township and Livonia)
co-star as a mar-
ried couple try-
ing to remember
what brought them
together in the first
place as they find
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whelmed with things
like child care and
bills.
52
Comedian Brett Gelman, 37, co-
stars as A.J., a newly divorced best
friend. Another best friend, Jess
(comedian Jenny Slate, 32), is an ex-
party girl whose much older husband
(Paul Reiser, 57) tries to keep up
with her.
While not Jewish, Greer was really
authentic as the Jewish girlfriend
of the title character in The Hebrew
Hammer, a 2003 hilarious farce.
New Flicks
Sex Tape is a farce that reunites
Bad Teacher director Jake Kasdan,
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Jason Segel, 34, and Diaz star as a
married couple who are horrified to
find out a sex tape
they made is missing.
Opening the same
day is And So It
Goes, directed by Rob
Reiner, 67. Michael
Douglas, 69, who
Ng' toured Israel last
Jake Kasdan
month with his newly
bar-mitzvahed son,
Dylan, stars as Oren Little, a self-
centered and obnoxious realtor whose
estranged son leaves a granddaughter
Oren never knew existed on his door-
step. Little enlists his kindly neighbor
(Diane Keaton) to help care for her.
At 11 a.m. Sunday, July 20, the
Landmark Main Art Theatre in Royal
Oak screens a filmed version of the
acclaimed Broadway play The Nance,
starring Nathan Lane as a gay 1930s
burlesque performer who specializes
in being a "nance," a term used to
describe comics who did stereotypi-
cally effeminate bits. The film will
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J. Stadlen, 67, co-stars as a theater
manager.
Rabbi Hanks
Justin Bieber recently posted a short
video of Tom Hanks, wearing a tallit
and yarmulke, as he sang and danced
at the recent Jewish wedding of
Scooter Braun (Bieber's manager),
33. He looks like a rabbi.
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