John Adams - The Death of Klinghoffer (1991)

Death, be not proud! Apparently John Adams’s The Death of Klinghoffer has something to offend everyone. When it was new back in 1991, this quintessential opera, based on the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists, created a mild stir among those who perceived it as insufficiently hard on terrorism and more than a bit unfriendly to Jews. Since 9/11, the smoldering resentment has fairly exploded. The Boston Symphony hastily canceled a performance of concert excerpts. Musicologist Richard Taruskin, in an article in the New York Times, accused Adams of romanticizing terrorists and being un-American. The editor of England’s Opera magazine was appalled by Alice Goodman’s libretto, which he dismissed as “desperately naïve,” and even went so far as to say that the opera is “best left unperformed.” After seeing a production in Helsinki, one critic in the same journal hated the work so much that he declared it “an operatic corpse.”


John Adams
The Death Of Klinghoffer

Music by John Adams
Libretto by Alice Goodman

French premiere: 13 April 1991
World premiere production

Disc 1

1. Chorus Of Exiled Palestinians
2. Chorus Of Exiled Jews
3. Act I, Scene 1: It Was Just After One Fifteen (The Captain)
4. Act I, Scene 1: My Grandson Didi, Who Was Two (Swiss Grandmother)
5. Act I, Scene 1: Give These Orders (Molqi)
6. Act I, Scene 1: So I Said To My Grandson (Swiss Grandmother)
7. Act I, Scene 1: We Are Sorry For You (Mamound)
8. Act I, Scene 1: Ocean Chorus
9. Act I, Scene 2: Now It Is Night (The Captain)
10. Act I, Scene 2: I Think If You Could Talk Like This (The Captain)
11. Act I, Scene 2: I Have Often Reflected That This Is No Ship (The Captain)
12. Act I, Scene 2: I Kept My Distance (Austrian Woman)
13. Act I, Scene 2: Those Birds Flying Above Us (Mamoud)
14. Act I, Scene 2: Night Chorus

Disc: 2

1. Act II: Hagar Chorus
2. Act II, Scene 1: Come here. Look. (Molqi)
3. Act II, Scene 1: I've Never Been A Violent Man (Leon Klinghoffer)
4. Act II, Scene 1: You Are Always Complaining Of Your Suffering (Rambo)
5. Act II, Scene 1: I Must Have Been Hysterical British Dancing Girl)
6. Act II, Scene 1: It Is As If Our Earthly Life Were Spent Miserably (Omar)
7. Act II, Scene 1: Desert Chorus
8. Act II, Scene 2: My One Consolation (Marilyn Klinghoffer)
9. Act II, Scene 2: Klinghoffer's Death
10. Act II, Scene 2: Every Fifteen Minutes, One More Will Be Shot (Mamoud)
11. Act II, Scene 2: Aria Of The Falling Body
12. Act II, Scene 2: Day Chorus
13. Act II, Scene 3: Mrs. Klinghoffer, Please Sit Down (The Captain)
14. Act II, Scene 3: You Embraced Them! (Marily Klinghoffer)

Opéra de Lyon
Conducted by Kent Nagano

Stage direction by Peter Sellars
Choreography by Mark Morris
Set design by George Tsypin
Costume design by Dunya Ramicova
Lighting design by James F. Ingalls
Sound Design by Jonathan Deans
Projection design by John Boesche

Nonesuch 9 79281-2