"The Death of Klinghoffer" at Opera Theatre June 15 through 25, 2011

Copyright: Ken Howard, 2011

If you want to know why The Death of Klinghoffer, the 1991 opera by John Adams and Alice Goodman, poses such a challenge for audiences, you need look no further than the title. The murder of wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer by the hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985 is the key incident of the work, yet it takes place offstage. As with most of the dramatic moments in the story, we encounter it only at a remove, retold by others and commented upon in often obscure language by the chorus. The fact that the current Opera Theatre production is still often compelling and fascinating is an indicator of just how strong all the performances are. With material like this, nothing less than the best will suffice – and “the best” is what we got on opening night.

Mr. Adams and Ms. Goodman were apparently aware of the work’s challenging structure. They originally regarded it as more akin to the dramatic oratorios of Bach or Handel than a conventional opera. Not surprisingly, therefore, most performances of it have been concert versions.

For this first fully staged American production since 1991, director James Robinson has added on-stage action that mostly amplifies and clarifies the text, helping to create some moments that have an undeniable impact. Examples that come immediately to mind include the opening choruses of exiled Palestinians and Jews, the hijacker Mamoud’s soliloquies on the romance of distant radio stations and the freedom of birds (beautifully realized by bass-baritone Aubrey Allicock), and the hallucinatory “Night Chorus” that concludes the first act. But the result is still, at least for me, a work that lacks any real dramatic impact, appealing more to the head than the heart.

A detailed and highly recommended synopsis of the opera is available on Wikipedia, but the basics will be familiar to those who remember the events of 1985: four hijackers take over the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and demand the release of fifty Palestinians held in Israeli jails. When their demands are met with silence, they murder Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish American, throw his body overboard, and threaten to kill others. Once negotiations begin, the remaining passengers are set free and the captain and Klinghoffer’s wife are left to deal with their grief and anger.

Some events, including a fictional confrontation between Klinghoffer and the hijackers, are played out in real time, but for the most part characters either give us their own spin on events or reveal their inner lives in soliloquies. There are even a couple of roles – the Austrian Woman and the British Dancer, both played brilliantly by mezzo Lucy Schaufer – whose superficial blather would work as comic relief, were the overall background not so grim.

Individual scenes are separated by choruses that comment on the action, usually in oblique and poetically complex language that contrasts sharply with the more prosaic text assigned to individual characters. The music for these chorales is, to my ears, the most powerful and complex in the opera (which may explain Mr. Adams’s Choruses from The Death of Klinghoffer, composed in the same year as the opera), presenting a considerable challenge to Chorus Master R. Robert Ainley and his forces. It’s a challenge they meet brilliantly, producing ensemble singing of the highest order. Even when the words seem deliberately opaque, the vocal sound is beyond reproach.

The strong choral singing is matched by impressive performances in the named roles. I have already commented on the fine work of Mr. Allicock and Ms. Schaufer. There are also impressive interpretations from baritone Christopher Magiera as The Captain, baritone Brian Mulligan as Klinghoffer, and mezzo Laura Wilde (a Gerdine Young Artist) in the “pants” role of the hijacker Omar. Mezzo Nancy Maultsby is appropriately and believably tragic as Marilyn Klinghoffer (a performance rendered even more remarkable by the fact that the role is actually intended for a contralto) and baritone Paul La Rosa is an impressive figure in every sense of the term as both the First Officer and the brutal hijacker “Rambo”. Tenor Matthew DiBattista isn’t given much to work with as the lead hijacker Molqi, but his powerful, ringing voice makes the most of it.

Conductor Michael Christie leads the orchestra of St. Louis Symphony musicians (augmented by keyboardists Adam Burnette and Andrea Grant) through Adams’s demanding music with consummate skill. The composer himself was in attendance on opening night and I think he couldn’t have asked for a better reading of this score.

Allen Moyer’s set is dramatic and attention grabbing in its simplicity. Massive flats painted to look like a riveted steel hull shift quickly and easily to change scenes, assisted by a wide scrim that descends as needed to project still and moving images. It all enables the large chorus to appear and disappear quickly and helps compensate for the often-static nature of the drama.

If all this leaves you with the impression that I’m feeling somewhat ambivalent about The Death of Klinghoffer, you’d be spot on. It seems to me that I should like the piece much more than I do. Its heart and head are in the right place, it doesn’t take cheap political shots, and it aims high. But ultimately the work suffers from the same theatrical inertia that sank the first Adams-Goodman collaboration, Nixon in China. I think it’s worth seeing – especially given how rare a staged performance is – but you should be prepared for the possibility of a less than satisfying experience.

Performances of The Death of Klinghoffer continue at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the Webster University campus through June 25th. For more information, visit experienceopera.org or the company’s Facebook page, call 314-961-0644 or follow them on Twitter @OTSL.