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August 10, 2005
Scottish Opera Klinghoffer controversy
Scottish Opera will perform The Death of Klinghoffer by John Adams, as part of the Edinburgh International Festival, on 23 August and three subsequent dates.
The work is about the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists who murdered the elderly, disabled Leon Klinghoffer, and attempts to see the tragedy from the point of view of both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
The production is said to involve machine-gun armed chorus members sitting disguised in the audience before storming on stage.
Scottish Opera has something of a genius for exciting controversy, and there is already a call by Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles for the production to be boycott.
news.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=1741092005
Andy Karzas of Chicago comments on an opera list:
“What if someone in the audience had suddenly feigned a heart attack and interrupted the performance? And once the curtain came down and the medics had arrived the individual under discussion suddenly sat up and said ,’oh, I’m fine; I’m just using the same kind of shock tactics that the director employed in the performance.’ Could/should he or she be prosecuted?”
Interesting!
Posted by Simon Holledge at August 10, 2005 04:49 PM
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Comments
Sounds very innovative Simon - will you be attending and providing a review? should be interesting.
Melissa @ Boris Johnson office
Posted by: Melissa at August 10, 2005 09:24 PM
Not sure if I am going, however I like Adams - Nixon in China etc. - arguably the most important opera composer today.
I haven't listened to the music of Klinghoffer or read the text (or seen the film), but I have heard Adams talking about it and I know he has strong feelings about trying to understand both sides in the Middle East conflict.
Incidentally, Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is also appearing at the festival. Barenboim started the orchestra as a way of getting young people from Israeli and the Arab world to make music together. (The name - West-Östlicher Divan - is from Goethe.)
Posted by: Simon Holledge at August 11, 2005 02:50 PM
How lucky you are to be so close to all the cultural buzz at the Festival! Quite a happening place
Posted by: Melissa at August 11, 2005 10:16 PM
A lot of the music is just recycled from the BBC Proms, and most of the opera is not staged, but we have some really good exhibitions including Gauguin, Francis Bacon and Cartier-Bresson.
Posted by: Simon Holledge at August 12, 2005 12:41 PM