'Klinghoffer' protested at Metropolitan Opera NYC

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The New York Times wrote:

At the Metropolitan Opera’s first performance of John Adams’s “The Death of Klinghoffer” on Monday night, men and women in evening attire walked through a maze of police barricades, while protesters shouted “Shame!” and “Terror is not art!” One demonstrator held aloft a white handkerchief splattered with red. Others, in wheelchairs set up for the occasion, lined Columbus Avenue.

Political figures, including former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, joined a rally, several hundred strong at Lincoln Center, to denounce an opera that has become the object of a charged debate about art, anti-Semitism and politics.

But after months of escalating protests, including threats of opera officials and online harassment of the cast, “Klinghoffer” finally went on, only a few minutes late. There were cheers when David Robertson, the conductor, arrived in the pit and a few boos after the opening “Chorus of Exiled Palestinians” ended.

More on story HERE

What do A2kers think of this? Is the opera anti-Semitic, in your opinion? Disrespectful to the memory of Mr. Klinghoffer? Or is it emotional over-reaction?

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Type: Discussion • Score: 4 • Views: 1,338 • Replies: 17

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I support free speech.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Do you also support peaceful demonstration?

1 Reply

@Lordyaswas,

to a limited extent

2 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

So, then, free speech may be limited?

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

to a limited extent

So does your extent extend to this particular demonstraion?

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

So, then, free speech may be limited?

Yes; if someone enters a bank n declares a robbery,
he cannot hide behind free speech. Extortion by blackmail
is not justified by freedom of speech. Fraud is not justifed by free speech.

0 Replies

@Lordyaswas,

Lordyaswas wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

to a limited extent

So does your extent extend to this particular demonstraion?

as long as it does not obstruct traffic

0 Replies

I take it that nobody gives a **** as there have been no serious responses.

3 Replies

@Lustig Andrei,

I don t care much.

David

0 Replies

Here's the latest take from Haaretz,

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Sorry, Andrew, I was going to post earlier but ended up having one utter shitty day.
A case of being "under the frog" as the Magyar say.

I don't really know the ins and outs of the Opera itself, but know about the incident and can only wonder why anyone would make an opera about such a subject.
I understand that some people think it's biased in favour of the Palestinians, but still think it's not a very nice way to make a political point.

Not an easy subject to praise or condemn, really.

0 Replies

@Lustig Andrei,

Haaretz wrote:

The 1991 opera, by composer John Adams and librettist Alice Goodman, portrays the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestine Liberation Front terrorists, who demanded the release of 50 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. They then murdered wheelchair-bound 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish New Yorker, by shooting him in the head and chest, dumping his body and wheelchair over the side of the ship. The opera had its worldwide debut in Brussels, and then its American premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in 1991. Performances slated to take place in Boston and elsewhere shortly after 9/11 were cancelled.

Klinghoffer’s daughters, Ilsa and Lisa Klinghoffer, have vociferously objected to the opera, which they have call a “perversion” of their father’s murder that “attempts to romanticize, rationalize, legitimize and explain it.” A program note from them was distributed to those attending the Met Opera production.

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

I may give a ****, not sure which way re an opinion of mine re the opera since I haven't read up. Whatever I learn that I think, I would be for them producing it - in some ways that is what theater is about, at least some of the heart of theater - and for protesters being allowed to protest, sans harrassment by the protesters to others or harrassment to them, aka, peaceful protest.

Ah, I see a bunch of articles. I will read, but at my own pace, thank you.

(I remember the incident happening way back when, but not the details.)

0 Replies

@Lustig Andrei,

According to the newspapers of the time,
he was not shot, as I remember it.

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

I thought he was shot in the head and dumped overboard, but looking it up it would appear that he was shot in the chest as well.

If I remember correctly, there were a spate of various hijackings going on, where the PLO or PLF were re-directing planes and sorting out the passengers, looking for American passports.

We were a bit busy at the time being blown up by the IRA.

Happy days.

1 Reply

@Lordyaswas,

I remember newspaper accounts
of witness condemnation of the vulgarity of his language
as he was being helped over the side in his wheelchair;
a young lad who was carving himself out another slice of un-attended fruitpie,
which he commended as being most flavorful, when he heard the commotion.
He said that he believed, in error, that the reason for his being required
to leave the ship was his loud n foul language in a guttural sounding voice.

I 'm trying to remember whether that boy was interviewed by Barbara Walters.

David

0 Replies

I will be paying attention to the back story as it comes out. This looks all the world like a desperate act of a desperate art company, trying to be the Madonna of the opera world. Who knows what the problem is over there at the Med, but what ever it is it is huge.

0 Replies

'Klinghoffer' protested at Metropolitan Opera NYC

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