by Carol Greenwald
I
was at both the protest outside the Met last night, sitting in a wheel
chair, wearing a sign proclaiming "I am Klinghoffer" as well as one of
those who saw the opera last night from the second row orchestra.
The protest was good. The wheelchairs were an effective visual for the media. I would estimate the crowd at no more than a thousand which is disappointing given the publicity and that this was NY, but none of the major Jewish organizations were part of this, (despite a letter to editor by American Jewish Committee to the New York Times).
The speeches from politicians like former Mayor Giuliani, Rep Peter King, Rep. Elliot Engel, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney among others and Jewish leaders like Helen Freedman of Americans for a Safe Israel, and Ron Lauder, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, were moving and on point: this opera by the Met will give support to antisemitism and had disgraced the Met forever. Noticeably missing in action were the leaders of the major Jewish organizations, an absence noted by several speakers.
I
entered the Met in a wheel chair. Being in a wheelchair was
interesting. The staff at Met was very polite but even though I paid for
a wheelchair seat so I could sit in my wheelchair, they had not removed
the seat so I could sit in my wheelchair, but carried me from the chair
into the seat and made me check my chair. Thus my plan to leave early
rolling down the aisle in a wheel chair was frustrated. I think this was
purposely done by the Met.
The Met had advertised, "See the opera and judge for yourself". Well I did and the opera is horrible. Far worse than I had thought it would be. It is not about the murder of Klinghoffer. That is almost a prop. The opera is about the terrible suffering of the exiled Palestinians. The opening chorus of Palestinian women singing a heartrending song about the loss of their homes is very moving. Then in the fair and unbalanced way of this opera, the Jewish exiles enter. They sing that they used up all their money on taxis and they have empty suitcases. They sing about Jerusalem and the Hasidim protesting movies. It is a mish-mash. But it is unclear who these Jewish exiles are. The Holocaust is never mentioned, nor that these people are Holocaust survivors. They used up their money on taxis! Are you kidding? I laughed out loud when they started complaining about the Hasidim.
So the opera opens with the false equivalence of the Holocaust with the displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 war. Only the Holocaust is never mentioned and the Jews are laughable and the Palestinians are incredibly moving sorrowful figures.
The action takes place on shipboard with a backdrop of The Separation Wall (erected of course after 2005) with graffiti saying Free Palestine and Welcome to the Ghetto. The years annually are flashed across the stage ending in 2014. So right from the start you know this is not about something that happened in 1985. This is a passion play about Palestinian suffering. The Palestinian chorus is the main focus of the opera.
The terrorists are definitely romanticized and humanized, often in the most unrealistic manner. In the first act, one of the terrorists sits on deck singing about his love of birds. Birds! At length he describes the habits of birds. He really likes birds. In a subtle slap at Judaism, he lists the birds -- ravens, eagles, cranes, etc. almost all the nonkosher species specified in the Bible and then proclaims them "clean."
The action on shipboard is periodically frozen to allow the Palestinians in black to march solemnly across the stage and Act 1 ends with Palestinian men running round and round the Palestinian women chorus with the Palestinian flag, reminiscent of Les Miserables.
In the first act, there was some booing after a song ended and cries of liar and garbage, some from yours truly and her friend, and when the first Act ended there were a lot of boos and applause competing. But in the second act, it was very quiet.
In the second act, the assassin curls up in a ball on his mother's lap while she and the chorus of Palestinian women lament their loss, reminding our psychologically tortured Palestinian that his mother and brother were killed in Sabra and Shatila. (The opera does not point out that the massacres at Sabra and Shatila were committed by Christian Lebanese militias, not Israelis.) His brother was even decapitated. Just what Israelis do. No matter.
Our tormented "hero" writhes on the floor in anger and pain. Then he gets up and shoots Klinghoffer. What he does is so understandable. Your sympathy is with his righteous anger.
It was very depressing that when the composer, John Adams, went on stage he was greeted by loud applause. I had left before this and maybe others had, too, but the Met seemed to be sold out and it was primarily a supportive audience.
I am feeling very sad today despite the national coverage.
The production made it clear that anti-Zionism morphs into anti-Semitism or vice versa. The production was about the Palestinian cause and punctuated at times with weird Christian symbolism, as when the Jewish exiles’ efforts working the land raises two naked Christ-like crucified figures, replete with the stretched out arms.
Somehow it is the murderers who are the victims and Klinghoffer is just a prop. He gets one song. One feels that he was included just so you can understand why terrorism occurs. It is justifiable rage unleashed on an accessible, but guilty-by-association target. He is shot not so much because he is a Jew as he is someone who mocks the justness of the Palestinian violent terrorism. As they say, they are not criminals. They are idealists.
As for the music and singing, it is so lugubrious and virtually all musically uninteresting recitative. No one would ever perform this as opera without the politics as agenda. If ever there were propaganda masquerading as art, this is it.
The protest was good. The wheelchairs were an effective visual for the media. I would estimate the crowd at no more than a thousand which is disappointing given the publicity and that this was NY, but none of the major Jewish organizations were part of this, (despite a letter to editor by American Jewish Committee to the New York Times).
The speeches from politicians like former Mayor Giuliani, Rep Peter King, Rep. Elliot Engel, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney among others and Jewish leaders like Helen Freedman of Americans for a Safe Israel, and Ron Lauder, chairman of the World Jewish Congress, were moving and on point: this opera by the Met will give support to antisemitism and had disgraced the Met forever. Noticeably missing in action were the leaders of the major Jewish organizations, an absence noted by several speakers.
I
entered the Met in a wheel chair. Being in a wheelchair was
interesting. The staff at Met was very polite but even though I paid for
a wheelchair seat so I could sit in my wheelchair, they had not removed
the seat so I could sit in my wheelchair, but carried me from the chair
into the seat and made me check my chair. Thus my plan to leave early
rolling down the aisle in a wheel chair was frustrated. I think this was
purposely done by the Met.The Met had advertised, "See the opera and judge for yourself". Well I did and the opera is horrible. Far worse than I had thought it would be. It is not about the murder of Klinghoffer. That is almost a prop. The opera is about the terrible suffering of the exiled Palestinians. The opening chorus of Palestinian women singing a heartrending song about the loss of their homes is very moving. Then in the fair and unbalanced way of this opera, the Jewish exiles enter. They sing that they used up all their money on taxis and they have empty suitcases. They sing about Jerusalem and the Hasidim protesting movies. It is a mish-mash. But it is unclear who these Jewish exiles are. The Holocaust is never mentioned, nor that these people are Holocaust survivors. They used up their money on taxis! Are you kidding? I laughed out loud when they started complaining about the Hasidim.
So the opera opens with the false equivalence of the Holocaust with the displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 war. Only the Holocaust is never mentioned and the Jews are laughable and the Palestinians are incredibly moving sorrowful figures.
The action takes place on shipboard with a backdrop of The Separation Wall (erected of course after 2005) with graffiti saying Free Palestine and Welcome to the Ghetto. The years annually are flashed across the stage ending in 2014. So right from the start you know this is not about something that happened in 1985. This is a passion play about Palestinian suffering. The Palestinian chorus is the main focus of the opera.
The terrorists are definitely romanticized and humanized, often in the most unrealistic manner. In the first act, one of the terrorists sits on deck singing about his love of birds. Birds! At length he describes the habits of birds. He really likes birds. In a subtle slap at Judaism, he lists the birds -- ravens, eagles, cranes, etc. almost all the nonkosher species specified in the Bible and then proclaims them "clean."
The action on shipboard is periodically frozen to allow the Palestinians in black to march solemnly across the stage and Act 1 ends with Palestinian men running round and round the Palestinian women chorus with the Palestinian flag, reminiscent of Les Miserables.
In the first act, there was some booing after a song ended and cries of liar and garbage, some from yours truly and her friend, and when the first Act ended there were a lot of boos and applause competing. But in the second act, it was very quiet.
In the second act, the assassin curls up in a ball on his mother's lap while she and the chorus of Palestinian women lament their loss, reminding our psychologically tortured Palestinian that his mother and brother were killed in Sabra and Shatila. (The opera does not point out that the massacres at Sabra and Shatila were committed by Christian Lebanese militias, not Israelis.) His brother was even decapitated. Just what Israelis do. No matter.
Our tormented "hero" writhes on the floor in anger and pain. Then he gets up and shoots Klinghoffer. What he does is so understandable. Your sympathy is with his righteous anger.
It was very depressing that when the composer, John Adams, went on stage he was greeted by loud applause. I had left before this and maybe others had, too, but the Met seemed to be sold out and it was primarily a supportive audience.
I am feeling very sad today despite the national coverage.
The production made it clear that anti-Zionism morphs into anti-Semitism or vice versa. The production was about the Palestinian cause and punctuated at times with weird Christian symbolism, as when the Jewish exiles’ efforts working the land raises two naked Christ-like crucified figures, replete with the stretched out arms.
Somehow it is the murderers who are the victims and Klinghoffer is just a prop. He gets one song. One feels that he was included just so you can understand why terrorism occurs. It is justifiable rage unleashed on an accessible, but guilty-by-association target. He is shot not so much because he is a Jew as he is someone who mocks the justness of the Palestinian violent terrorism. As they say, they are not criminals. They are idealists.
As for the music and singing, it is so lugubrious and virtually all musically uninteresting recitative. No one would ever perform this as opera without the politics as agenda. If ever there were propaganda masquerading as art, this is it.
Carol Greenwald
Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/10/the_klinghoffer_opera_is_emnotem_about_klinghoffer.html
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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