Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:21:34.487Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Re-producing Klinghoffer: Opera and Arab Identity before and after 9/11

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2009

RUTH SARA LONGOBARDI
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

John Adams's opera The Death of Klinghoffer stages the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. This essay proposes that the representations of Palestinian hijackers in three different productions show the opera reinventing itself before and after 9/11, when Arab identity hovers ambiguously in the U.S. Imaginary. Analyses focus in particular on distinct forms of collaboration among artists and media. In 1991 thorny associations among media produce an ambiguous Arab subject that reflects, and encourages, a capability for dialogue around the topic of terrorism. By contrast, two productions in 2003 rely on film and photograph to situate rigidly delineated Palestinian characters—demonstrating a dependency on visual media and a consequent highlighting of race that may be emblematic of a post-9/11 era. The essay concludes that different forms of collaboration in The Death of Klinghoffer can be approached as a microcosm of social and political interactions taking place far beyond the opera proper.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 3 , Issue 3 , August 2009 , pp. 273 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbate, Carolyn. Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, John. “Klinghoffer and the Art of Composing: An Interview with John Adams by David B. Beverly.” <http://www.earbox.com<.Google Scholar
Anker, Elisabeth. “Villains, Victims and Heroes: Melodrama, Media, and 9/11.” Journal of Communication 55/1 (March 2005): 22–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banks, Daniel. “An Epic Collaboration.” Theater Week, 16 September 1991.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. Translated by Heath, Stephen. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977.Google Scholar
Brooks, Peter. The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976.Google Scholar
Christiansen, Rupert. “Breaking Taboos: Alice Goodman Talks to Rupert Christiansen.” Opera 54/5 (May 2003): 543–48.Google Scholar
Clymer, Jeffory A. “The 1886 Chicago Haymarket Bombing and the Rhetoric of Terrorism in America.” Yale Journal of Criticism 15/2 (2002): 315–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corner, John. “Performing the Real: Documentary Diversions.” Television & New Media 3/3 (2002): 255–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daines, Mathew, and Sellars, Peter. “Nixon in China: An Interview with Peter Sellars.” Tempo 197 (1996): 12–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daughtry, J. Martin. “Charting Courses through Terror's Wake: An Introduction.” In Music in the Post-9/11 World, ed. Ritter, Jonathan and Daughtry, J. Martin, xix–xxxi. New York: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Deaville, James. “The Sounds of American and Canadian Television News after 9/11: Entoning Horror and Grief, Fear and Anger.” In Music in the Post-9/11 World, ed. Ritter, Jonathan and Daughtry, J. Martin, 43–70. New York: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Dyer, Richard. “Klinghoffer Librettist Revels in Power of Words.” Boston Globe, 1 September 1991.Google Scholar
Filipski, Kevin. “High Seas Terrorists: Brooklyn Philharmonic and Ridge Theater Present John Adams' Opera The Death of Klinghoffer.” Brooklyn Paper 26/48, 1 December 2003.Google Scholar
Fink, Robert. “Klinghoffer in Brooklyn Heights.” Cambridge Opera Journal 17/2 (2005): 173–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genette, Gérard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Translated by Lewin, Jane E.. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Hoelterhoff, Manuela. “Opera: Adams/Sellars Klinghoffer.” Wall Street Journal, 29 March 1991.Google Scholar
Kozinn, Allan. “Klinghoffer Daughters Protest Opera.” New York Times, 11 September 1991.Google Scholar
Kraft, Leo. “The Death of Klinghoffer.” Perspectives of New Music 30/1 (Winter 1992): 300–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Lawrence. Opera and Modern Culture: Wagner and Strauss. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubiano, Wahneema. “But Compared to What? Reading Realism, Representation, and Essentialism in School Daze, Do the Right Thing, and the Spike Lee Discourse.” Black American Literature Forum 25/2 (Summer 1991): 253–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattison, Ben. “John Adams' Former Collaborator Says Dr. Atomic Is Anti-Semitic.” PlaybillArts, 30 September 2005.Google Scholar
McAlister, Melani. “A Cultural History of the War without End.” Journal of American History 89/2 (September 2002): 439–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Bill. “History, Myth, and Narrative in Documentary.” Film Quarterly 41/1 (Autumn 1987): 9–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Norris, Pippa, Kern, Montague, and Just, Marion. “Introduction: Framing Terrorism.” In Framing Terrorism: The News Media, the Government, and the Public, ed. Norris, Pippa, Kern, Montague, and Just, Marion, 3–26. London: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Oliverio, Annamarie. The State of Terror. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Park, Elena. “John Adams Speaks Out about Art in a Time of War.” Andante, 1 July 2005.Google Scholar
Rockwell, John. “Is Klinghoffer Anti-Semitic?” New York Times, 4 May 2003.Google Scholar
Rockwell, John. “Political Operas Happen to Cross Paths.” New York Times, 8 November 1991.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Edward. “Klinghoffer Sinks into Minimal Sea.” New York Times, 15 September 1991.Google Scholar
Rothstein, Edward. “Seeking Symmetry between Palestinians and Jews.” New York Times, 7 September 1991.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. “John Adams: The Death of Klinghoffer.” The Nation, 11 November 1991.Google Scholar
Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.Google Scholar
Scherzinger, Martin. “Double Voices of Musical Censorship after 9/11.” In Music in the Post-9/11 World, ed. Ritter, Jonathan and Daughtry, J. Martin, 91–122. New York: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Silberstein, Sandra. War of Words: Language, Politics and 9/11. London: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
Sobchack, Vivian. “The Insistent Fringe: Moving Images and Historical Consciousness.” History and Theory 36/4 (1997): 4–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tommasini, Anthony. “Giving Voice to an Act of Terror.” New York Times, 5 December 2003.Google Scholar
White, Hayden. The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
White, Hayden. Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Hayden. “The Modernist Event.” In The Persistence of History: Cinema, Television, and the Modern Event, ed. Sobchack, Vivian. New York: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar