It wasn't on a scale with the riotous premiere of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," but the first Metropolitan Opera performance of "The Death of Klinghoffer," the controversial work by composer John Adams and librettist Alice Goodman about the 1985 hijacking of the ship Achille Lauro, was as unconventional as expected.
Opera-goers arriving at Lincoln Center Monday night had to maneuver around police barricades to get to the theater. They could hear shouts and speeches by protesters gathered across the street to denounce everything about a piece of music theater relatively few people have actually experienced.
The chief charges: The opera is anti-Semitic and sympathetic to terrorists; it's disrespectful to the memory of Leon Klinghoffer, the wheelchair-bound passenger aboard the Achille Lauro who was murdered by the Palestinian hijackers, his body thrown overboard.
The anger about the opera, which has been growing ever since the Met decided to stage the 1991 work, kept getting noisier as the opening approached. Among the protesters Monday, demanding that the company cancel the production, was former New York mayor and longtime operaphile Rudolph Giuliani.
Months ago, Met general manager Peter Gelb agreed to cancel the scheduled global HD broadcast of the opera as a compromise with disgruntled factions. That didn't satisfy them, and only sparked a new controversy -- the charge of censorship. (The most odious censorship is the kind imposed by governments, of course. The Met can obviously do as it pleases.)
Why all this commotion now? The incidents portrayed in the opera happened almost 30 years ago. "The Death of Klinghoffer" has been produced in about two dozen places since 1991, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, with little or no fuss. Bringing it to the exalted Met apparently was a step too far for some, especially now, with nerves on edge over new waves of terrorism and anti-Semitism.
The Met's ad campaign for "Klinghoffer" sensibly urged: "See it first. Then decide."
Several folks chose another approach: See it, but also shout out judgments even before the first note could sound, and shout some more periodically during the first performance.
The most prolonged outburst came from a man loudly repeating the phrase, "The murder of Klinghoffer will never be forgiven." Conductor David Robertson and the cast took that and other disturbances in stride.
After Act 1, as the house lights came on, a voice from a balcony castigated the audience for attending such -- well, let's just say the language wasn't polite.
(There were silent acts of protest, too. I spotted a man with a Star of David pinned to his jacket. And one of the most eloquent objections could be read in the Met's own program book, a commentary from the Klinghoffer's daughters outlining why they believe this opera "rationalizes, romanticizes and legitimizes the terrorist murder of our father." You can't say this company has not tried to be fair.)
I was expecting more trouble in Act 2. Security folks were, too. A couple of them were waiting for a woman in the row in front of me who had been a considerable nuisance earlier, but she did not return after intermission.
Act 2 had only a tiny bit of protest that quickly petered out. The protesters were clearly outnumbered. It was not until Adams took a curtain call that any discord could again be heard, but boos were easily drowned out by the enthusiastic, sustained ovation.
Monday's volatile performance may not change anyone's mind about the work, pro or con, but it will likely keep the conversation going. Not a bad thing. That's what art can do, should do.
When all was sung and shouted, this staging of "Klinghoffer," a co-production with English National Opera, affirmed the fundamental power and often subtle beauty of Adams' music. It also affirmed the troubling aspects of Goodman's libretto.
This isn't an anti-Semitic opera, but it's often an insensitive one.
Those so quick to mock the protesters must not have tried very hard to understand how and why some of the text could hurt and enrage.
Those who point out how noble and heart-wrenching the character of Marilyn Klinghoffer is at the opera's conclusion -- and she is definitely that -- don't seem to have considered the way she is made to seem rather mundane earlier. Is it really necessary to have Marilyn refer to the hijacking ordeal as a "mishegas"?