- Audio Cassette (16 April 1995)
- Format: Import
- Label: Elektra / Wea
- ASIN: B00000EOP9
- Other Editions: Audio CD
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
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Product details |
Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 2. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 3. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 4. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 5. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 6. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 7. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 8. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 9. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 10. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
See all 14 tracks on this disc
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| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 2. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 3. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 4. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 5. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 6. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 7. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 8. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 9. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
| 10. Death of Klinghoffer | |||
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See all 14 tracks on this disc
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
After the massive controversy which surrounded the first performances of John Adams' opera The Death of Klinghoffer in 1991/92, the work practically disappeared. But a decade on, Klinghoffer resurfaced in a string of European countries. Adams and librettist Alice Goodman offended the US Jewish lobby with their "even-handed" depiction of the hijacking by Palestinian terrorists of the cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985. Even-handed, that is, to both the Palestinian and Israeli positions in their long-standing conflict, despite the focal event of the hijacking being the death of American Jewish tourist Leon Klinghoffer.
Adams vividly highlights the emotions and agendas of the key participants and moments, from the hijack's most heart-stopping episodes and haunting musings on Palestinian-Israeli history, to the inconsolable grief of Marilyn Klinghoffer at her husband's death (Sheila Nadler is excellent here). Nagano's reading carries the hallmarks of his typical, painstaking approach. The cast may not seem A-list but their identification with Adams' work is clear--not least the original 1991 Leon Klinghoffer, Sanford Sylvan. Jamaes Maddalena convinces in the extended, intriguing role of The Captain. The London Opera Chorus--here equivalent to the chorus in Bach's Passions--is immaculate. --Andrew Green
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
This "opera" is big on atmosphere with some good choruses and fine orchestration. But the music feels static at times and lacking in drama and it is not very memorable
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful
No heroes, only pawns....
31 Aug 2001
Format:Audio CD
The Death Of Klinghoffer by John Adams is to my mind one of the great musical and dramatic works of the last 25 years. I heard it in Brooklyn and in San Francisco live in its first outings, and having now heard the cd's for the 1000th time, I am still blown away by the power of this score, especially in its choral writing and in its sheer beauty. Minimalist techniques are (as in Nixon in China) put at the service of the drama, and melody and achingly beautiful passages only heighten the impact of the piece. Most of all, we are reminded in this work that this is a trgedy on multiple levels: for Klinghoffer and his wife, for the captain and guests, and, above all, for the people whose lives are dominated and shaped by the ongoing, ugly and seemingly intractable -- not to mention ungodly -- conflict that won't be resolved by those that carry weapons. The backdrop of the dispute is that there are no heroic figures, no saviors, only tragic pawns and a huge array of victims. Adams brings to this sensitivity, beauty, and, sadly, an acknowledgment of the despair the world feels about the Middle East. When you listen to the choral passages, there's a level of pain mixed with anger that is truly remarkable -- something rarely found in music and opera, except in, perhaps, Fidelio, and there only fleetingly. This opera is a must for those who not only love music, but also those who say they revere and respect human life. As Henze's libretto for The Raft of the Frigate 'Medusa" concludes (paraphrased): "Those who remained, went on to change the world." That's what our response to hearing this music should be, since Marilyn Klinghoffer's rage at the end of the opera is interwoven with the same sense of sorrow and pain heard in the choral passages: how else do you rectify sorrow and pain but by struggling to change that which causes it?
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Great as an oratorio--not as an opera
14 May 2001
Format:Audio CD
John Adams' and Alice Goodman's follow-up work to their splendid NIXON IN CHINA was this, a very somber and sober envisioning of the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in the mid-Eighties. The work has some of Adams's most beautiful music to date, with choruses of tremendous power (particularly the opening paired choruses and the terrifying "Night" chorus), arias of undeniable facility and charm ("I must have been hysterical") and of great dramatic power (Marilyn's furious indictment "You embraced them!", which closes the work). Unfortunately, the various pieces don't seem at all of a unified whole--Adams keeps changing modes from set piece to set piece, and the thing doesn't really breathe. It doesn't help matters that the work is set retrospectively so that none of the characters seem to live the past, only to remember them; or that Goodman's libretto is much less fluid than her previously supple work for NIXON. (In KLINGHOFFER, the awkwardness of Goodman's words are best demonstrated by the fact that almost each chorus begins with the dreadful syntactic construction "Is not the...?"). The overall sense is of a work with tremendous poignancy and potential that sometimes veers into pretentiousness, without the humor and drama that finally makes NIXON a superior operative outing.
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
A great work of our time
5 Jan 1999
Format:Audio CD
The Death of Klinghoffer was described by Gramophone as "one of the twentieth century's best operas" - and this is my view also. I found this work one of the most moving pieces of contemporary music I have ever heard. It is accessible, but never shallow; musician's music but never arcane; sensitive but never effeminate. It handles issues of complexity and difficulty with a very light touch; the political furore which surrounded its performance was never justified, and not based on either the words or music. I recommend this piece to all those of open mind as one of the great works of our time.
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