‘Klinghoffer’ opera a sour note with family

jerusalem (jps) | Although the Achille Lauro sunk in flames nine years after its hijacking in 1985, an opera about the most shocking event to have taken place aboard the ship is still afloat.

In fact, "Death of Klinghoffer" concluded a successful four-show run with the Scottish Opera at the Edinburgh International Festival last week.

John Adams' two-and-a-half-hour stage production about the murder of wheelchair-bound Jewish American Leon Klinghoffer by Palestinian terrorists aboard the cruise ship has sparked controversy since it was launched in the United States nearly 15 years ago. Critics have accused Adams, a longtime Bay Area composer, of romanticizing the terrorists as "Robin Hoods" and bemoaned the author's attempt to show the hijackers in as evenhanded a light as possible.

Several days before the opening of the opera's recent run, Klinghoffer's daughters, Lisa and Ilsa, issued a protest through the Anti-Defamation League.

"Our family feels compelled to react to the statements of the Scottish director, Anthony Neilson, who said: 'The opera takes an objective and evenhanded approach in an attempt to understand the human motivations behind such terrible acts. The production is well balanced.'

"It is those words — 'objective,' 'evenhanded,' 'human motivations' and especially 'well balanced' — that we find offensive and appalling," the women continued.

"Those words attempt to give credibility, license and misplaced sympathy to murderers who perpetrate these inhumane acts.