aris2chat
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- Feb 17, 2012
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The idea of an opera is some kind of sick joke. Who thinks of or writes such things?
Stefan Kanfer
Operatic Naiveté
The Metropolitan Opera’s indefensible decision to stage The Death of Klinghoffer
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/eon0624sk.html
24 June 2014
In 1991, an opera debuted in Brussels, Belgium. The Death of Klinghoffer focused on an incident aboard the Italian tourist ship Achille Lauro in 1985, when a disabled Jewish passenger was slain by members of the Palestine Liberation Front. The terrorists hijacked the boat off the coast of Egypt, shot Leon Klinghoffer in his wheelchair, then dumped the body overboard. All this was portrayed in melodramatic arias and choruses, with much emphasis given to the Palestinian party line.
Response to the opera was immediate and sulfuric. Scores of protests poured in. But none had the moral force of a statement made by Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, daughters of the deceased: “We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the coldblooded murder of our father as the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic.” In response, composer John Adams, and librettist Alice Goodman insisted that they were only trying to give “equal voice” to Israel and the PLO.
Stefan Kanfer
Operatic Naiveté
The Metropolitan Opera’s indefensible decision to stage The Death of Klinghoffer
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/eon0624sk.html
24 June 2014
In 1991, an opera debuted in Brussels, Belgium. The Death of Klinghoffer focused on an incident aboard the Italian tourist ship Achille Lauro in 1985, when a disabled Jewish passenger was slain by members of the Palestine Liberation Front. The terrorists hijacked the boat off the coast of Egypt, shot Leon Klinghoffer in his wheelchair, then dumped the body overboard. All this was portrayed in melodramatic arias and choruses, with much emphasis given to the Palestinian party line.
Response to the opera was immediate and sulfuric. Scores of protests poured in. But none had the moral force of a statement made by Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, daughters of the deceased: “We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the coldblooded murder of our father as the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic.” In response, composer John Adams, and librettist Alice Goodman insisted that they were only trying to give “equal voice” to Israel and the PLO.
