Work: The Death of Klinghoffer

David Robertson carried the Met Orchestra through one of the most brilliantly-conducted performances I’ve witnessed, though the music itself was not always impressive. 

Hijacking, murder and terror on the high seas: you might expect that The Death of Klinghoffer, John Adams's 1991 opera about the Palestinian hijacking of the cruise liner Achille Lauro has all the makings of a pot-boiling thriller. But you would be wrong: Adams and his librettist Alice Goodman have other fish to fry.