The Death of Klinghoffer is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams to an English libretto by the poet Alice Goodman. It was first performed at the Théatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium, in 1991.
The opera tells the true story of the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the resulting murder of Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer. It was the center of a gr...
more
The Death of Klinghoffer is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams to an English libretto by the poet Alice Goodman. It was first performed at the Théatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium, in 1991.
The opera tells the true story of the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the resulting murder of Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer. It was the center of a great controversy when it was performed in the United States in late 1991 and early 1992. A British Channel 4 television version, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adams, was directed by Penny Woolcock in 2003. There was also a performance by Scottish Opera at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival.
The Death of Klinghoffer is written in a style similar to the minimalist music made popular by composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Adams is inspired by the sacred oratorios of Johann Sebastian Bach, in which intervallic relationships...
less
