Despite Shoval’s call, the orchestra said in a statement that it will play a work by Adams.
Adams wrote the controversial opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer,” which has ignited passions and protests since it was first performed in 1991 and has resulted in claims that Adams is antisemitic. The opera is based on the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists. They shot Klinghoffer, who was disabled, and threw him and his wheelchair overboard.
The opera is not part of the July 4 program, but the inclusion of music by Adams prompted Shoval to complain to the IPO.
“The intention to put together a program of works by American composers, for an esteemed holiday is praiseworthy, but including in it the work of an antisemitic composer whose infamous work, ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ celebrates upon the blood of Leon Klinghoffer, z”l, the elderly, disabled American Jew who was killed cruelly and terrifyingly by Palestinian terrorists who threw him and his wheelchair to the depths of the sea... is completely incomprehensible,” wrote Shoval, in a letter addressed to conductor Lahav Shani, the IPO’s music director.
Shoval noted that a prominent music critic, Richard Taruskin, wrote that the opera, “served antisemitic and anti-American prejudices.” Shoval also pointed out that the killers were from the Palestine Liberation Front, which the US had categorized as a terrorist organization.
“Generally speaking, it is advisable to deal with works of art mainly based on their artistic value and their contribution to culture, but practically that is not always possible, especially as many works in music, paintings and literature have a political dimension that is the choice of their creators, and ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ is one of these,” Shoval wrote.
Shoval said he thought this was a particularly bad time to perform a work by Adams: “Israel and the Jews of the world, especially nowadays, are under brutal antisemitic attack, when terror organizations like Hamas and others and their supporters throughout the world exploit any possible way, through the media and in so-called ‘cultural’ events in order to damage the status of Israel and its very right to exist. It is not the time (if ever) to include a work of a composer of Adams’ type in the programs of our wonderful national orchestra, not to mention offending the feelings of the loved ones of the terror victims and therefore it should be removed from the program.”
The Israel Philharmonic responded to the letter with a statement on Tuesday which said: “John Adams is considered one of the greatest American composers of our time and has never spoken in an antisemitic way. Indeed, Adams has written a number of operas that deal with political issues, some of which are controversial. We are happy to play his music as part of a program of great American composers – in which most of the music is by Jewish composers.”
In addition to the piece by Adams, the program includes works by Jewish American composers George Gershwin, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, as well as a piece by Samuel Barber.
Shoval is not the first to characterize the opera as being sympathetic to the terrorists. A 2014 revival of the opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City drew demonstrations, with former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani among the protesters. The Met chose to include a statement from the Klinghoffers’ daughters, Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, on its website and in the playbill, in which they said that the opera “presents false moral equivalences without context and offers no real insight into the historical reality and the senseless murder of an American Jew… it rationalizes, romanticizes, and legitimizes the terrorist murder of our father.”
But one of the most distinguished American Jews, the late Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said that she did not consider the opera to be an antisemitic work.
In a talk at the University of California’s Washington Center after she attended the Met’s performance of the opera, she said that it was “a most sympathetic portrayal of the Klinghoffers. Both of them come across as very strong, very brave characters… There was nothing antisemitic about the opera.”
She also disputed the contention that the opera glorified terror: “The terrorists are not portrayed as people that you would like. Far from it. They are being portrayed as bullies and irrational.”