Met Opens “Figaro” Amidst Protesters
Several hundred protesters gathered last night outside the Metropolitan Opera before the opening-night performance of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro†for a noisy demonstration calling for the company to cancel its production of John Adams’s 1991 opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer,†which is to have its Met premiere next month. That opera depicts a 1985 cruise ship hijacking by members of the Palestine Liberation Front, and the killing of a disabled Jewish-American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer. Whatever happened to freedom of expression? It’s thriving, in a sense: the protesters got to protest, and the Met gets to present “Klinghoffer.” As for last night’s “Figaro,” here’s a review from Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times.
