Zealotry 1, Culture 0

Achille Lauro. Like Titanic, Lusitania and Normandie it is a ship that lives in infamy. While only one person died, he died famously and cruelly, murdered in his wheelchair and then tossed overboard. His name was Leon Klinghoffer.

Famed composer John Adams wrote The Death of Klinghoffer, an opera that premiered in 1991 at BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I was there. It was an exciting and important evening, though I cannot say I loved all I heard. There were sublime moments, mostly choral, and it was convincingly staged, but it's an opera that rightfully never really entered the modern repertory.

Still, I was happy to hear that the Metropolitan Opera was finally going to present Klinghoffer next season. Better still, it was to be included in the Live in HD series, so I could revisit it without going into the city. Free versus $25 in transportation expense and a $100 ticket? Deal!

Alas, no deal. The HD schedule was written without consulting the world's Jewish leaders. Once they got word, everything changed. Met Executive Director Peter Gelb announced this week that he was bowing to "unimaginable" pressure to not show Klinghoffer in theaters around the world, less someone's anti-Semitism is somehow stoked. Gelb says the work is NOT anti-Semitic, but caved nonetheless.

I am sick to death of religious leaders and their followers trying to tell us what to see, what to think and how to behave. Believe in whatever fantasies you wish, say I; just keep your prejudices and hatreds to yourself.

I wrote the other day about the troubles in Iraq. It's all about religion. Are you Sunni or Shia? If you're one you must hate the other. Bullshit. In Klingoffer it's Palestinians and Israelis. John Adams wrote a serious opera with compassion toward both sides of the divide. No serious critic thinks it is anti-Semitic or pro-terror. But a bunch of powerful Jews want it stopped, so stopped it is.

This is just further evidence of the intolerance we Americans have grown for anything that we don't agree with, for anything that might challenge us. I for one am sick of it. Live and fucking let live, dammit!
_______________
Addenda:

My friend Don points out that the real foul here is with Peter Gelb and the Met backing down. I wholeheartedly agree and could have been clearer in emphasizing that point.

On a totally unrelated note, it is ironic that days after I saw Gerry Goffin portrayed in the Broadway show Beautiful he should pass away yesterday at 75. I mourn his loss and celebrate his brilliance.