The general manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera (Met) has insisted that the controversial work ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ will be presented as scheduled, despite protests that it is anti-Semitic.
John Adams' opera ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ relates the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish man killed by Palestinian gunmen on board a hijacked cruise ship in 1985. It is a piece that has attracted controversy ever since it was first staged in 1991, with some accusing it of glorifying terrorism and being anti-Semitic.
The piece has also prompted sharp criticism from Klinghoffer's family for the "exploitation" of his "cold-blooded murder". The Met had originally planned to relay the revival - a co-production with the English National Opera (ENO) first seen in London in 2012 - live to cinemas around the world. However, after Jewish groups argued the screenings would stoke anti-Semitism outside the US, the relays were canceled.
The Met's general manager, Peter Gelb, has now told the BBC that the stage presentation would go ahead as planned. "There's no doubt for anyone who sees this opera that… it's not anti-Semitic," he told the ‘BBC News’ website. "It does not glorify terrorism in any way. It is a brilliant work of art that must be performed." Gelb, who has been with the Met since 2006, acknowledged the strength of feeling surrounding the opera and said he had received death threats.
The opera house has been advertising the opera with the slogan: “See it. Then decide.”
In 1985, Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound retiree from New York, took a Mediterranean cruise on the Achille Lauro with his wife Marilyn. On 7 October, four hijackers from Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Front (PLO) took control of the vessel. The following day, they shot Klinghoffer dead and had his body thrown overboard.
