Klinghoffer Additional Links

More round-up:

• Justice Ginsberg Finds for the Defense, WSJ
• We Took Four New Yorkers to "The Death of Klinghoffer," Guardian
• Klinghoffer at the Met, Paul Berman, Tablet
• Klinghoffer: A Night at the Opera, Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest

The Death of Klinghoffer Media Roundup

Reviews are coming in; watch for updates:

• Anthony Tommasini, NY Times (Top of the page on the web just now)
• John Yohalem, Parterre Box
• Pamela McCorduck, Iron Tongue of Midnight
• Joe Dziemianowicz, Daily News
• Justin Davidson, Vulture.com 
• James Jorden, NY Observer
• George Grella, NY Classical Review
• Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times
• Anne Midgette, Washington Post (includes her media roundup)
• Manuela Holterhoff, Bloomberg
• Heidi Waleson, WSJ
• Mark Swed, LA Times
• Paul Pelkonen, Superconductor
• Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy's Wall of Text
• Sam Reising, I Care If You Listen

Guest Post: Death of Klinghoffer Review

Pamela McCorduck, author of Machines Who Think and co-author of The Futures of Women, was at the Met opening of The Death of Klinghoffer and sent me this review, which I am publishing with her permission:

Arrived to a tremendous police presence, which saddened me, but which also reassured me. Ticket holders had to enter at the side of the plaza, which was otherwise completely sealed off; the demonstrators were out toward Columbus Avenue. Plenty of purse-checking once inside the house too.

The production was given a tremendous ovation (which it earned) at the end. The disruptions - one guy yelling out during a quiet moment in the first act (a well-educated voice) that "the murder of Klinghoffer will not be forgiven" seemed to me entirely self-aggrandizing. No one in that auditorium could, or probably would, be forgiving anyone, nor had they the right. The Times says he was escorted from the house and arrested; likewise a woman who screamed "a vulgarity" and though I was seated in the orchestra, as was she, I couldn?t tell what she yelled. 

The opera opens with two choruses in succession, one the exiled Palestinians, one the exiled Jews. Each is an exquisite piece of music (and as my Juilliard instructor pointed out, each lasts to the

minute the same time as the other). After the exiled Palestinians sing, people actually booed. Not because the music wasn?t beautiful and beautifully performed, but because Palestinians in New York

deserve to be booed on principle, apparently. This dismayed me, but there you go. No Palestinians in the audience to boo the chorus of the exiled Jews.

The first act seemed a bit abstract?the choral music was always superb, but the arias less so. I?d have to hear them again to say more. But the second act! It took hold and didn?t let you go. I was utterly wiped out at the end.

Does the opera humanize the terrorists? Yes, it does. Are they admirable human beings? Glamorous? Not in the least. But to acknowledge their pain in exile is only to acknowledge the unpleasant facts, and the opera would make no sense as drama if we didn?t have a little backstory. 

Whereas Klinghoffer and his wife are altogether admirable: from a wheelchair, he speaks truth to power, in the old phrase, a guy standing in front of him with a machine gun--a hugely courageous

thing. The conjugal love between them is beautifully delineated. The captain is subtly characterized (a peacemaker, and a courageous man who, even at gunpoint, lies about Klinghoffer's death to the

authorities on land because he suspects that if the death is reported, mayhem will come from land and many more will be killed). He offers his own life to the terrorists, because as "host" on his ship, he has failed his "guests."

Before, at intermission, and after the performance, an electronic bulletin board told how the opera differed from the facts, and what happened to the main characters, including the terrorists (they were

eventually released from prison). The program itself had a page-long statement from the Klinghoffer daughters, which was heartfelt, but contained a major confusion between art and real life. It was their father; they're entitled to the confusion. 

Even Rudi Giuliani, who was outside leading the protestors, admitted that he loves the music, and listens to it "without listening to the words"? I can't think why. This is in no way propaganda. It's a

deeply moving piece of art. 

How it got the reputation of being anti-Semitic just baffles me. Yes, one of the terrorists talks about "Jewish exploitation of the poor," but that's the stuff you've heard since you were four, and in

this case, it quickly changes to "American exploitation." But the Jewish characters themselves are portrayed with deep sympathy and subtlety, which the Palestinians are not. Their sorrow has

degenerated into fanaticism, which may be human, but isn't to be admired. 

To me, it was an irony that fanatics were outside protesting an opera which nearly none of them had seen nor knew anything about.

 My report from the field,

Curtain Up!

The latest on The Death of Klinghoffer, which opened this evening at the Met. Here are the latest articles about this opera.

• 'Klinghoffer' Protesters Flock to Met Opera House, Michael Cooper, Times. (Sorry, staging this opera doesn't license you to kill someone any more than Verdi's Macbeth does.)(This includes a post-opera update, apparently!)
• With New 'Klinghoffer,' Furor Only Grows, Michael Cooper, Times
• An Opera Under Fire, Zachary Woolfe, Times
• Twenty Years Later, 'Klinghoffer' Still Draws Protests, Joel Rose, Deceptive Cadence (NPR)
• From 2012, Jessica Duchen's piece on 'Klinghoffer' in London
• A Work Divided, Philip Kennicott in ON

Here's a Twitter feed for Klinghoffer (no hashtag). Zerbinetta: "Protestors are yelling “shame on you! Despicable!” as we enter the plaza."

Oy Vey

Peter Gelb, June 2014, in a Met press release:

“I’m convinced that the opera is not anti-Semitic,” said the Met’s General Manager, Peter Gelb. “But I’ve also become convinced that there is genuine 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.” 

He doesn't say "we think showing Klinghoffer will increase anti-Semitism," but the statement is phrased to imply that he is saying that. Instead, he is agreeing with nameless others that there's concern that it's inapporpriate to show Klinghoffer. I thought this was a dumb stance to take in June, and I still think it is a dumb stance.

Peter Gelb, September 2014, according to Commentary:

“He took the outrageous position that challenging this opera would increase anti-Semitism because it would appear that Jews were controlling the arts,” the rabbi recalled. “We said this opera is an affront not only to Jews but also to all decent people, especially those victimized by terrorists. Many 9/11 families have spoken against it. Given this mentality what’s next, an ISIS love story?”

This is the worst possible argument to make: it is outrageous because it is wrong and stupid. All he needs do is to keep repeating "We believe in this opera, we are going to stage it, you cannot make us cancel the production. Thank you for your comments." And needless to say, anyone who wants to challenge or protest or picket the opera itself should do so; free speech and all that.

More on Klinghoffer

Over at New York Magazine, Justin Davidson has a lengthy analysis of the libretto and music of John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, which opens next month at the Met. I'd call it a must-read; he clears away a fair amount of the accumulated past discussion of the opera, and clarifies what is actually going on.

Meanwhile, protestors are already out there on the Lincoln Center plaza, because it's opening night at the Met.

Season Announcements, 2014-15: Berkeley Symphony

Berkeley Symphony's 2014-15 season opens in a month, and as usual they have a fine balance of old, new, and commissions, with soloists including Jennifer Koh and Sasha Cooke. Here's the orchestral season:

Zellerbach Hall Concert Series

Season Opener: Program I

Thursday, October 2, 2014 at 7:00 p.m.

Tickets: $15 to $74

Performers Joana Carneiro, conductor

Jennifer Koh, violin

Program Oscar Bettison: Sea Shaped (World Premiere Commission)

Sibelius: Violin Concerto

Elgar: Enigma Variations

Program II

Thursday, January 15, 2015 at 8:00 p.m.

Tickets: $15 to $74

Performers Joana Carniero, conductor

Program Thomas Adès: Asyla (Bay Area Commission Premier)

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, “Pathétique”

Program III

Thursday, February 26, 2015 at 8:00 p.m.

Tickets: $15 to $74

Performers: Joana Carneiro, conductor

Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano

Program Ravel: Mother Goose Suite

Jake Heggie: Camille Claudel: Into the Fire for Orchestra and Mezzo-Soprano

(World Premiere Commission)

Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98

Program IV

Thursday, April 30, 2015 at 8:00 p.m.

Tickets: $15 to $74

Performers Joana Carneiro, conductor

Soloist from the Adler Fellowship Program, San Francisco Opera Center

University and Chamber Choruses of the University of California, Berkeley

Marika Kuzma, director

Program John Adams: Choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer

   Mozart: Requiem Mass in D minor

(There is also a chamber music series, but programs and performers are still TBA, as far as I know.)

The Met as a Risk Taker?

Anthony Tommasini wrote an article about risk-taking at the Met, and Drew McManus followed up with a good analysis of both that article and the Met's situation. But there are some issues neither of them addresses at all that are relevant to the issue of the Met as an artistic leader and risk-taker.

They are both aware of these issues, but somehow these points don't emerge in the articles, other than that Tommasini does mention the misbegotten Lepage Ring in passing, a production that Peter Gelb has unsuccessfully tried to pass off as innovative and risk-taking. (To repeat why this isn't so: a unit-set production with terrible Personregie isn't innovative. It's dumb.) In any event, my major point is that I do not think the words "artistic risk" and "Met" can reasonably be used in relation to each other.

• The Met has close to 4000 seats to fill, hence the tourist-friendly, everpresent Zefirelli Boheme and its ilk. 
• The company operates in an expensive city with expensive union contracts.
• Some of the big donors are conservative to a fault: note the Sibyl Harrington Foundation's lawsuit over the Dieter Dorn Tristan, which is spare but not in any way radical.
• The Met's idea of "risk" is that Willy Decker Traviata that, again, is pretty conventional, or the Prince Igor that Tommasini discusses. Yes, the Igor is reimagined in an interesting way, and it is a rarity, but it is not musically risky, being full of beautiful tunes.
• The Met has whole seasons where only two operas of 25 were written later than Turandot. This year, there are three: The Rake's Progress, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and The Death of Klinghoffer. Of these, only Klinghoffer represents much of a risk, and that is not because of its musical idiom.

There are giant swathes of repertory the Met rarely, or never, perform, such as new and recent operas not written by people named Glass, Adams, or Corigliano. (There are exceptions but you know what I mean.) New operas written by Europeans. Anything vaguely experimental, though the Muhly opera is at least trendy. The Met seems to regard Janacek as chancy, and they don't touch Dvorak other than Rusalka. In context, it is amazing that they're doing Iolanta this season, but it's Tchaikowsky.

The Met doesn't use truly radical stagings, except for the Robert Wilson Lohengrin and perhaps that new Parsifal. They've got Herheim's Meistersinger coming in some day, but it's the least radical of his stagings that I have read about. We can forget about Bieto or Neunfels or any of the other more thoughtful directors working primarily in Europe. Even the great Patrice Chereau took until 2009 to get a staging to the Met.

The Met is not a company that has ever shown much artistic leadership, and all you have to do is take a look at its repertory report to see the truth of this. Especially since 1945, it has had a terrible record of performing new and recent opera, and has done little to expand the repertory or commission new works. It's a behemoth whose productions always get a lot of attention. The company pays decently; its productions are reviewed and seen worldwide; it can get a singer a lot of good publicity. But an artistic leader or risk taker, the company is not and never has been.

Foxman and Ideas

Today's NY Times has an eloquent letter from Abraham Foxman arguing that Mein Kampf, by Adolph Hitler, should be published in Germany. I agree with him on this.

However, he's the same guy who thinks you shouldn't get to see The Death of Klinghoffer. It's pretty clear from his HuffPost piece of June 20 that he and his allies pressured the Met to cancel Klinghoffer entirely.

More on the Klinghoffer HD Broadcast Decision

 Links to some relevant articles and a few thoughts of my own about the opera. More to come, no doubt.

• Joshua Kosman has an opinion piece in the Chronicle today about the Met's decision to cancel the HD broadcast of John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer. He doesn't mince any words, calling the decision "craven" and "a new marker for institutional cowardice." Yep, yep, yep.
• Looking back to 2001, here is the notorious Richard Taruskin post-9/11 article. If this is what Joshua is referring to as the article that makes a good case for the problems with the opera, I disagree. It reads to me like a load of straw men and ranting before Taruskin, on page 3, finally comes to the clanging conclusion that the BSO's cancellation of choruses from Klinghoffer was right because it showed self-control and respect for the feelings of others. He does not call Klinghoffer anti-Semitic, either, though for all I know that is what he was thinking.
• NY Times editorial: The Klinghoffer Tragedy. They oppose the cancellation, but they're way too polite to the Met.
• Jessica Duchen: How to shoot yourself in both feet at the opera
•  NMB: Readers Respond to Death of Klinghoffer Simulcast Cancellation
• Anthony Tommasini: Chances Lost in Dispute Over Opera 
• Michael Cooper: Adams Responds. Apropos of the Klinghoffer daughters getting to use the program as their platform, gosh, would the Met have published a letter from Richard Nixon's daughters when Nixon in China was finally performed at the Met?? Of course, Nixon comes off pretty well in the opera.

I think there is a case to be made against the libretto, but it's not one I have seen before: if you want to present the Israel/Palestinian conflict in an even-handed way, which is what I believe Adams and Goodman have said they were trying to do, having Israel represented by an American Jew and Palestine represented by terrorists misrepresents both sides. An American Jew isn't an Israeli and isn't Israel; Palestinians deserve better representation than the minority of terrorists. Consider an alternative plotline unrelated to the Achille Laura hijacking: a Palestinian family that lost its land after fleeing in 1948, an Israeli family that lost its home in the Holocaust or after fleeing Iran. And there's an obvious bad side in murdering an old man who has no power in the conflict. I haven't seen or heard the opera and have no opinion as to whether it is anti-Semitic. I will say that the portrayal of Henry Kissinger in Nixon made me squirm, though.

Met Cancels Klinghoffer HD Broadcast

From the Met:

New York, NY (June 17, 2014) – After an outpouring of concern that its plans to transmit John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer might be used to fan global anti-Semitism, the Metropolitan Opera announced the decision today to cancel its Live in HD transmission, scheduled for November 15, 2014. The opera, which premiered in 1991, is about the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship and the murder of one of its Jewish passengers, Leon Klinghoffer, at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

“I’m convinced that the opera is not anti-Semitic,” said the Met’s General Manager, Peter Gelb. “But I’ve also become convinced that there is genuine 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 final decision was made after a series of discussions between Mr. Gelb and Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, representing the wishes of the Klinghoffer daughters.

In the interests of transparency, the Met ought to release some evidence of the "outpouring of concern," because right now it looks like the ADL and the Klinghoffer daughters have done this single-handedly.

From John Adams:

My opera accords great dignity to the memory of Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer, and it roundly condemns his brutal murder. It acknowledges the dreams and the grievances of not only the Israeli but also the Palestinian people, and in no form condones or promotes violence, terrorism or anti-Semitism. The cancellation of the international telecast is a deeply regrettable decision and goes far beyond issues of 'artistic freedom,' and ends in promoting the same kind of intolerance that the opera’s detractors claim to be preventing.