MY SAY: ON THE METROPOLITAN OPERA’S PRODUCTION OF “THE DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER”
I saw “The Death of Klinghoffer” at BAM many years ago and exited, as many did, before the intermission. To paraphrase the humorist Edgar Wilson Nye who said of Wagner “ the music is better than it sounds.”( That quote is often inaccurately attributed to Mark Twain).
There is a last act to this musical felony committed by composer John Adams.
Leon Klinghoffer’s widow, Marilyn, filed a lawsuit against the PLO when she returned from the hijacking, but died before the litigation. The Klinghoffer sisters continued with the lawsuit, where former United States Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, the PLO’s lawyer argued that the PLO was a de-facto state and therefore immune from prosecution under international law. The PLO was one of the wealthiest terrorist groups in the world, funded by virtually all the oil producing states, but had no property or accounts in this country. The Klinghoffer sisters persevered and pressed the $1.5 billion dollar lawsuit which was settled for an “undisclosed” sum before it reached the courts in 1991.
According to reports, an “undisclosed “ sum from the “undisclosed” settlement with the PLO was given to the Anti-Defamation League for the Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation .
The question hangs in the air…..using money from the PLO to combat terrorism? The PLO continued its murderous rampage against civilians- in wheelchairs and baby strollers, undeterred by their loss in the lawsuit.
The ADL and the Klinghoffers have mounted opposition to the opera “The Death of Klinghoffer.” I applaud all the efforts against the opera, particularly those of patrons like my friend Leonard Weiss who will withhold funds from the Metropolitan Opera.
This, however, from the ADL webist in June 2014 is bizarre:
http://www.adl.org/israel-international/israel-middle-east/content/backgroundersarticles/the-klinghoffer-family-reacts-to-death-of-klinghoffer-opera.htmlhttp:/www.adl.org/israel-international/israel-middle-east/content/backgroundersarticles/the-klinghoffer-family-reacts-to-death-of-klinghoffer-opera.html#.U7aTYI1OWUm
“While the opera is highly problematic and has a strong anti-Israel bias, it is not anti-Semitic. A scene which was featured in the premier of the opera in 1991, in which some of the Jewish characters exhibited stereotypical behavior, was removed by the composer, and to ADL’s knowledge, has not been featured in any production since that time. Some have charged the version of the opera currently being performed with anti-Semitism based on the language used by one of its characters. In Act 2, Scene 1, the character of “Rambo,” the terrorist who subsequently shoots Leon Klinghoffer, sings an aria in which he taunts Leon, saying:
You are always complaining
Of your suffering
But wherever poor men
Are gathered they can
Find Jews getting fat.
You know how to cheat
The simple, exploit
The virgin, pollute
Where you have exploited
Defame those you cheated,
And break your own law
With idolatry.
America
Is one big Jew….
We do not view this openly articulated animus toward Jews as promoting anti-Semitism, rather it exposes Rambo and the hijacker’s entrenched and destructive anti-Semitism. This is akin to characters in other plays or movies (for example Nazi characters) whose anti-Semitism is part of their character and part of the plot’s development. In such cases, the character is anti-Semitic but the play or film is not. ”
Huh?rsk
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