It’s often said that opera is a dying art form, but you wouldn’t know it from the emotions flaring outside Lincoln Center last night.
The occasion was The Metropolitan Opera’s premiere of its production of John Adams’ controversial 1991 opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer.” inspired by the terrorist hijacking six years earlier of the Italian cruise liner the Achille Lauro.
During that fateful incident, an elderly, wheelchair-bound Jewish man was murdered, his body thrown overboard.
Before The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “The Death of Klinghoffer” began, protesters were out in full force, loudly declaring the work to be anti-Semitic.
Too bad some of that passion wasn’t emanating from the stage.
Is the work, featuring a libretto by Alice Goodman, born Jewish but now an Anglican priest, really anti-Semitic? Not in this Jewish reviewer’s opinion.
But it is hopelessly muddled and, considering the intense subject matter, strangely undramatic.
The first act, in particular, is boringly static, more a meditation on its themes than compelling storytelling.
Feeling more like an oratorio than opera, it begins with two Bach-inspired choral passages, the “Chorus of Exiled Palestinians” and the “Chorus of Exiled Jews,” which features hauntingly beautiful music by composer John Adams, but gives the best lines to the Palestinians.
“We are soldiers fighting a war . . . men of ideals,” they claim, while the Jews begin by singing “When I paid off the taxi / I had no money left / And, of course, no luggage.”
We then see the captain of the cruise ship Achille Lauro (Paulo Szot) recalling the events of the hijacking, with a plethora of lugubrious arias by various characters.
The second act is considerably more powerful, with Adams’ music taking on a more dynamic urgency.
But it has ridiculous moments: a terrorist performing an interpretive dance; an aria by a scantily clad passenger, the “British Dancing Girl,” about how well she was treated; and Marilyn Klinghoffer (Michaela Martens) kvetching about the state of modern health care.
The Klinghoffers do come off sympathetically, with Leon (a superb Alan Opie) rising from his wheelchair at one point to angrily rebuke the kidnappers.
“You don’t give a s—t,” he sings. “You just want to see people die.”
You can feel the opera’s creators straining to infuse the proceedings with deep meaning and historical context for the terrorists’ horrific actions.
But, despite some arresting moments in Tom Morris’ staging — such as when the Palestinians leave the stage and walk through the aisle to the back of the theater (that must have taken some courage on the part of the performers) — and the sterling performances by the Met orchestra and the fine ensemble, the piece hardly seems worth all the fuss and bother.
For everyone’s sake, however, let’s hope that Adams’ and Goodman’s next collaboration doesn’t concern the events of 9/11.