RuthSpencer has replied to Tom’s earlier question about whether she saw it live and what she made of the double staging:
The Death of Klinghoffer live Q&A: director Tom Morris answers your questions – as it happened
The director of the controversial opera, which opened on Monday to protests at the Met in New York, will be online at 1pm ET on Friday. Please post your questions now
Fri 24 Oct 2014 14.02 EDT
First published on Thu 23 Oct 2014 10.56 EDTLive feed
Patricia Contino asks:
First of all, I hope the trouble won’t discourage you from coming back to NYC to direct again. It is unfair and misdirected.
Is there any chance that the Met production will be filmed/recorded?
CelesteSmith asks:
When the production opened in London, there was virtually no controversy, certainly no protest. Were you surprised by the New York reaction to the piece?
Will Wilkin asks:
I was at the Monday night Met premier of this opera and saw no basis for calling it “anti-semitic.” Many operas have villains and the villain sings their part, this is hardly a “romanticization” or “glorification” of their villainy. Why are the terrorist villains of this opera not recognized as villains by the protestors? Surely the murderers in the opera are not portrayed as heroes.
Jonas Tarm asks:
What do you think would be the most ideal reaction from an audience member that has seen your production of The Death of Klinghoffer?
RuthSpencer asks:
The scene when Klinghoffer is shot appears twice in the production -- once when he faces away from the audience, and one when he faces us. Can you explain why you chose to do that?
Tom adds:
ID9979685 asks:
I feel very saddened that protesters, around the world, have been permitted to shut down art, and deny people the opportunity to make up their own mind. You chose to go ahead. What made you feel it was worth pushing through despite all the risks to you and your brave cast? (and thank you for doing so).
Tom Morris is online answering your questions in the thread
I’ll post his answers here as he types them too. The first questions was from me:
I’ve got a question: does Tom think that there is an increasingly hostile environment to artists around the world, with Exhibit B being cancelled in London after protests and the vandalism of Paul McCarthy’s sculpture Tree in Paris? Does he worry about it, and why does he think it’s more prevalent now?
On Monday, John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer opened at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. It was greeted by protests outside and inside the venue – as well as a standing ovation.
On Friday at 1pm ET, Tom Morris, the director, will be online to answer your questions about his production.
The opera, which was first performed in 1991, is based on a real event; the hijacking of the cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985 by the Palestinian Liberation Front. The terrorists murdered one passenger: Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish American wheelchair user, whose body was thrown overboard.
Many – including Leon Klinghoffer’s daughters – people bitterly object to the way Adams’s opera draws links between the displacement of Palestinian people by Israel and Klinghoffer’s murder.
On Monday, speakers including former mayor of New York Rudolph Giuliani expressed their anger that the opera humanises and seeks to understand Klinghoffer’s killers. They also say that The Death of Klinghoffer is antisemitic, a charge rejected by the Met.
However, others say that this is a misrepresentation of the opera, which concludes with an aria by Klinghoffer’s wife expressing her anger and sadness. On Tuesday, the Guardian published the views of four New Yorkers who were at the first night at the Met. A second performance takes place on Friday night.
Morris is the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in Bristol and, England, and in 2011 won a Tony award for best direction of a play for War House. Please post your questions for him now in the comment section below.
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