There were no security checks at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre on Tuesday. You could have carried a bomb inside. And for one long moment it felt as if someone had done just that during the long-awaited UK stage premiere of John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer. The performance began with three loud gunshots. Before long Arab-looking terrorists were occupying the stage, pointing weapons nervously at the auditorium. One of them waded into the stalls and started dragging members of the audience towards a huddle of frightened hostages.
Those poor souls were doubtless "planted" and the terrorists were indeed actors, but it felt as if we were all hijack victims - hijacked by dramatic verisimilitude. This is what it is like to be at the mercy of "men of ideals", so convinced of their righteousness that they show no respect for innocent human life.
Sitting through Klinghoffer, it felt as if Adams had musicked the reality of terrorism: very scary. The opera is based on the 1984 hijacking of the cruise liner Achille Lauro by Palestinian gunmen, during which a disabled Jewish-American tourist, Leon Klinghoffer, was murdered. First staged in Brussels in 1991, it has been surrounded by controversy ever since. No US opera company will touch it - not because it brings the Islamist threat too close to home but because it treats the Israeli/Palestinian conflict impartially. The opening choruses tell of dispossession - Jews by the Holocaust, Palestinians by the creation of Israel. The cycle of violence repeats itself.
Newscasts reminded us of this on Tuesday, as the final Jewish settlers in Gaza were removed from land they regarded as theirs - land now repossessed by Palestinians. Talk about an opera for our times? Adams and his collaborators, Peter Sellars and Alice Goodman, hit the nail on the head. Klinghoffer could not be further from the conventional operatic opium for the masses.
Brian McMaster, Edinburgh Festival director, can hold his head high. Klinghoffer is a real festival event, with topical resonance. The staging is a triumph, far superior to recent continental productions, and on a par with Penny Woolcock's celebrated film version.
The question posed by Klinghoffer has nothing to do with the subject matter or its even-handed treatment by the authors: that is a question of politics, not art. The structure of the work is perfectly sound - as long as you accept the premise that this is more a dramatic meditation than a traditional opera. It is built on Bach-like chorales and narrative arias, with little scope for character development.
No, the question is this: does the impact of Adams's opera depend solely on the notoriety of the event it portrays, or is it a convincing musico-dramatic entity in its own right? Did the authors simply milk a contemporary controversy to serve their own liberal agenda? If the piece had been artistically phoney, we would have seen through it long ago. The serene lines of the chorales create their own meditative pulse; several of the arias - notably Omar's paean to martyrdom and Marilyn Klinghoffer's closing aria - are extremely beautiful. The music constantly supports and sustains the drama, not just in the way it achieves "operatic" climaxes but also in its characterisation of ocean and night sky.
Edward Gardner conducts the music as if he really believes in it: the chorus and orchestra of Scottish Opera acquit themselves well, as does a cast led by Jonathan Summers, Susan Gorton, Kamel Boutros and Andrew Schroeder. Every word comes through, thanks to miking and surtitles. But it is Anthony Neilson's staging, atmospherically designed by Miriam Buether and Chahine Yavroyan, that stands Klinghoffer on its feet. Jews and Palestinians are dressed alike. You cannot escape the tension and fear, or deny the brief touches of humour. After all the controversy and obfuscation, Klinghoffer finally illuminates - and persuades.
Andrew Clark
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