Elizabeth – With all the hype surrounding The Death of Klinghoffer I was a bit apprehensive about Monday night’s Met premiere.  The anti-Klinghoffer movement was growing and intensifying over the past few weeks and now even included calls to burn the set to the ground.  I feared there would be disruptions and possibly even violence over an opera most protesters had never seen nor heard.  

I arrived by subway hoping to sneak in underground and avoid the anticipated insanity, but no such luck.  The underground entrance to Lincoln Center was gated off, so I headed to the street where I was greeted by metal barriers and police officers.  Three to four hundred people lined the street in front of Lincoln Center’s plaza and stood in Dante Park with signs of all sorts.  Wheelchairs lined Columbus Avenue in a nod to the wheelchair bound Leon Klinghoffer, the subject of the John Adams opera.  Just to enter the plaza I had to show several police officers my ticket for the evening.  As Shawn emerged from the throngs and crossed Columbus Avenue with his ticket held high in the air a small crowd pointed at him and yelled “Shame on you!  Shame on you!”  We stood and watched the protesters for a bit and Shawn got a photo of his hecklers.

Inside the Met the air was electric.  The security line, usually a passing glance inside a bag, was very slow as people with any kind of liquids were forced to empty their bottles into a trash can and bags were searched with flashlights.  Police in plain clothes and uniforms were everywhere from the plaza to the lobby, dress circle and balcony, everywhere.  We sat on the outdoor balcony at the Met and had a bite to eat before the show watching the protesters as they watched us.  It was a bit surreal.  As we took our seats I sized up our neighbors, wondering if any of them were going to interrupt the show.  People were clearly on edge because when the man behind me said, “Now the fun begins,” my neighbor turned around and confrontationally asked him what he meant by that statement.  The guy explained he now had to figure out how to use the Met titles in front of him.  “Oh,” the man sheepishly turned around. 

Shawn Milnes

Because of long lines to get through the increased security at the Met the curtain was held for ten minutes, which only caused the crowd’s anxious anticipation to grow.  When the conductor finally took his podium the applause was outsized.  While there were a few boos, the audience shushed them.  The opera opened with a chorus of Palestinians singing behind a scrim.   As they wandered around a minimal stage that mainly had some dirt tossed about, various scenes were projected onto the screen behind them.  A backdrop of trees and fertile land turned to arid land and eventually a four story tall wall, obviously the wall Israelis built to separate the Palestinians.  The Palestinian choristers turn into Israelis and we see about the same amount of time pass, except the background projections are of a fertile land and as the Israeli chorus sings, olive trees are planted all around the stage.  These same choristers merge shortly thereafter into the passengers on the cruise ship.  Adams clearly wants to give some insight into why the Palestine Liberation Front hijacked the Achille Lauro and make a statement of the universality of humanity.  I’m not sure these few scenes were effective, for while the choruses and music were beautiful it was a bit reductionist for me.

The scene then drastically shifts to a panel discussion format lead by the Captain, which is used to re-tell the Achille Lauro story.  I read many criticisms of John Adams’ music complaining that the music for Palestinians had more of an aureole, and I do see where those critiques are coming from.  In general I did find the music for both the representation of Palestinians and the terrorists more beautiful and melodic.  Part of the problem with the opera for me is that most of the singing is recitatives.  There are few arias for individual singers to shine.  The choral pieces are beautiful and moving, and the orchestral music is rather striking at times, both in how it changes and shifts and the layers and textures Adams creates but also in the intensity of the music and how effectively it conveys the feelings of the subjects.  Because the more moving pieces of music are for choral works and Palestinian choruses are used frequently I understand how listeners feel that the opera tilts a bit toward the PLF and Palestinians.

I also have to say that given how on edge everyone in the house was, it was scary to have so many guns not only brandished on stage, but shooting sound effects used.  I heard several people shriek the first time shots were fired.  There was one point where I was looking at a stage full of gun toting angry PLF and Palestinians waving giant green flags and wondered what the point of all this was.  It was scary.  I wavered and wondered if this production was more interested in being provocative than telling a story.  As the PLF flag waving scene came to a close, someone in the audience started repeatedly shouting “The murder of Klinghoffer will never be forgiven.”  He didn’t quiet down as the orchestra tried to start up the next scene.  I can only guess he was removed by the ushers or police as I heard his chants get quieter and quieter.  It was an irritant, but also not necessarily a statement I would dispute.  I did appreciate that the protester waited for a break in music and didn’t interrupt the middle of a scene. 

And as hyped up and excited as I was to be at the Met’s premiere, I have to be honest: I found my mind wandering during long stretches of the opera. I didn’t understand what was happening and the action seemed static at points.  There was a beautiful line by Aubrey Allicock as Mamoud describing many types of birds, but I didn’t understand why he was even singing about birds.  Similarly, there was fairly heavy use of the screens to convey factual information to the audience.  It seems as though the piece was so abstract that the factual information was necessary to keep the story grounded. Similarly confusing was the addition of other captives’ tales mixed in with the overall recounting of Klinghoffer’s death.  The stories of the Austrian woman and British dancer are interesting, but clash with the overall tone of the opera.  I imagine it was meant to inject levity or a broader view of the hijacking.  Those vignettes, while beautifully sung by Theodora Hanslowe and Kate Miller-Heidke, fell flat for me.

Overall I was left with a great respect for the performers for persevering over a great deal of pressure and objection from the public, but an uncertainty on how I feel about the piece itself.  What put me at ease a bit at least, was seeing an Orthodox Jew in the lobby as we left explaining to other operagoers “No it isn’t supposed to be an actual retelling of the death of Klinghoffer, it’s an art meditation on the events.”  I appreciated seeing someone who I would have assumed was against the opera actually evaluating and appreciating the work and trying to enlighten others as to its value.   Which is the real victory of the evening. 

Shawn – I got to the Lincoln Center area at 5:03pm and so spent nearly two hours at the protest.  Giuliani was already speaking when I arrived.  The crowd was smaller than the 9/22 protest though there was far more press.  And far, FAR more police.  But at least the protesters knew what opera was playing this time.  Four out of five people I spoke to at the 9/22 protest were convinced Klinghoffer was opening that night and even looked at me with a bit of pity and bemusement when I insisted it wasn’t. 

Giuliani was a let down I think for most of the protesters last night.  He was their ringer but although he repeatedly denounced the “moral equivalency” of the opera, he also made it clear that while the protesters have a right to protest, the Met has an equal right to put on the opera.   Near the end of his statements he added, “I have always been a Patron of the Met and I will continue to be a Patron of the Met.”  This was met with confused silence by the crowd, although they loudly cheered him at the end of his speech. 

The increased police presence did make everything feel more tense.  And Columbus Avenue was divided by police barricades.  On the Lincoln Center side of Columbus in their own cordoned off area, was a line of people in wheelchairs, each wearing an “I Am Leon Klinghoffer” sign. 

As we approached curtain time, things got a little more testy on the protester side of the barricade.  Several small yelling matches broke out between protesters and counter protesters and the police had to intervene and personally escort the counter protesters across the street to the small area cordoned off for tiny counter protest.  One conflict did almost come to blows, but the police were everywhere. 

The crowd turned on me in an instant once I showed my ticket to the first police check point on the east side of Columbus and was allowed through, screaming “SHAME ON YOU!!!  HOW DARE YOU!!!” and leaning over the barricades to get closer to me.  Probably foolishly, I instinctively responded by holding my ticket above my head in defiance as I waited to cross the street which led to more protesters screaming and pointing at me as I finally crossed Columbus to the second police check point that gave you access to Lincoln Center Plaza itself.  Looking back once on the plaza I could see them still screaming and pointing in my direction.  The plaza itself was eerily empty and as we approached the Met itself, the sounds of the screaming and protest faded.  A bit.  It was very surreal. 

Once inside the police presence was even more jarring.  Especially the two officers standing on the Dress Circle terrace, watching everyone come in.   I asked one of them if Klinghoffer guard duty was a volunteer or assigned position and he told me it was assigned.   “Not a bad assignment,” I said to him far too lightly.  “Yeah,” he responded, “Unless those protesters storm the doors.  Then we’re going to have a problem.”  I had to admit he was right.

Inside the theatre the audience was tense.  Even with, or perhaps because of, the uniformed police standing on either side of the Dress Circle and Grand Tier.   There could have been more upstairs as well but I couldn’t see. 

The show began without interruption except for a few boos when conductor David Robertson entered.  The choral opening of The Death of Klinghoffer was as riveting a moment of theatre and music as I have ever seen.  I was completely enrapt.  And while I did like the show very much and the production particularly, it was all a bit anti-climatic after the opening choruses.  I was reminded of my reaction to another Adams opera, Dr Atomic, which I saw in 2008.   Stretches of sublime captivating immersive music and drama followed by far longer stretches of acute mind wandering on my part.  Although the principal singers performed admirably, particularly Paulo Szot and Ryan Speedo Green, it was the choral sections that grabbed me completely.  The miraculous met chorus was as good as I’ve ever seen and heard them be and they made the entire evening more than worth braving the screams and jeers of the protesters outside. 

Surprisingly the only real disruption of the performance came during a brief break about 20 minutes into act one.  A single man somewhere down in Orchestra Left began screaming, “The Murder of Klinghoffer Will Never Be Forgiven!” over and over until he was ejected or left of his own accord.  I did find it of note that he waited until a musical break in the opera to stage his protest.  As undisruptive as a disruption can be really, and for that I was grateful.

As the conductor David Robertson bowed from the pit before the beginning of act two, a woman to my left in Dress Circle screamed, “Yeah!  We Fucking Love It!” after which many people cheered.  Directly after, I heard a man to my right say disdainfully, “This isn’t the Bronx.”  I found a triumph in such a cross section of humanity, who braved the protesters and police barricades, sitting together in the dark and witnessing this production. 

I think the New Yorker’s Alex Ross said it best.