John Adams - The Death of Klinghoffer / Nagano, The Orchestra of the Opera de Lyon

John Adams (Artist), Janice Felty (Artist), Stephanie Friedman (Artist), Thomas Hammons (Artist), Kent Nagano (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 17, 1992)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Nonesuch
• ASIN: B000005J1B
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #159,406 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Prologue: Chorus Of Exiled Palestinians

2. Prologue: Chorus Of Exiled Jews

3. Act 1, scene 1: "It was just after one fifteen"

4. Act 1, scene 1: "My Grandson Didi, who was two"

5. Act 1, scene 1: "Give these orders"

6. Act 1, scene 1: "So I said to my grandson"

7. Act 1, scene 1: "We are sorry for you"

8. Act 1, scene 1: Ocean Chorus

9. Act 1, scene 2: "Now it is night"

10. Act 1, scene 2: "I think if you could talk like this"

See all 14 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. Act 2: Hagar Chorus

2. Act 2, scene 1: "Come here. Look"

3. Act 2, scene 1: "I've never been a violent man"

4. Act 2, scene 1: "You are always complaining of your suffering"

5. Act 2, scene 1: "I must have been hysterical"

6. Act 2, scene 1: "It is as if our earthly life were spent miserably"

7. Act 2, scene 1: Desert Chorus

8. Act 2, scene 2: "My one consolation"

9. Act 2, scene 2: Klinghoffer's death

10. Act 2, scene 2: "Every fifteen minutes, one more will be shot"

See all 23 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No heroes, only pawns...., August 31, 2001

By 

NYC Music Lover "CWP" (New Rochelle, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: John Adams - The Death of Klinghoffer / Nagano, The Orchestra of the Opera de Lyon (Audio CD)

The Death Of Klinghoffer by John Adams is to my mind one of the great musical and dramatic works of the last 25 years. I heard it in Brooklyn and in San Francisco live in its first outings, and having now heard the cd's for the 1000th time, I am still blown away by the power of this score, especially in its choral writing and in its sheer beauty. Minimalist techniques are (as in Nixon in China) put at the service of the drama, and melody and achingly beautiful passages only heighten the impact of the piece. Most of all, we are reminded in this work that this is a trgedy on multiple levels: for Klinghoffer and his wife, for the captain and guests, and, above all, for the people whose lives are dominated and shaped by the ongoing, ugly and seemingly intractable -- not to mention ungodly -- conflict that won't be resolved by those that carry weapons. The backdrop of the dispute is that there are no heroic figures, no saviors, only tragic pawns and a huge array of victims. Adams brings to this sensitivity, beauty, and, sadly, an acknowledgment of the despair the world feels about the Middle East. When you listen to the choral passages, there's a level of pain mixed with anger that is truly remarkable -- something rarely found in music and opera, except in, perhaps, Fidelio, and there only fleetingly. This opera is a must for those who not only love music, but also those who say they revere and respect human life. As Henze's libretto for The Raft of the Frigate 'Medusa" concludes (paraphrased): "Those who remained, went on to change the world." That's what our response to hearing this music should be, since Marilyn Klinghoffer's rage at the end of the opera is interwoven with the same sense of sorrow and pain heard in the choral passages: how else do you rectify sorrow and pain but by struggling to change that which causes it?

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great as an oratorio--not as an opera, May 14, 2001

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: John Adams - The Death of Klinghoffer / Nagano, The Orchestra of the Opera de Lyon (Audio CD)

John Adams' and Alice Goodman's follow-up work to their splendid NIXON IN CHINA was this, a very somber and sober envisioning of the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in the mid-Eighties. The work has some of Adams's most beautiful music to date, with choruses of tremendous power (particularly the opening paired choruses and the terrifying "Night" chorus), arias of undeniable facility and charm ("I must have been hysterical") and of great dramatic power (Marilyn's furious indictment "You embraced them!", which closes the work). Unfortunately, the various pieces don't seem at all of a unified whole--Adams keeps changing modes from set piece to set piece, and the thing doesn't really breathe. It doesn't help matters that the work is set retrospectively so that none of the characters seem to live the past, only to remember them; or that Goodman's libretto is much less fluid than her previously supple work for NIXON. (In KLINGHOFFER, the awkwardness of Goodman's words are best demonstrated by the fact that almost each chorus begins with the dreadful syntactic construction "Is not the...?"). The overall sense is of a work with tremendous poignancy and potential that sometimes veers into pretentiousness, without the humor and drama that finally makes NIXON a superior operative outing.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great work of our time, January 5, 1999

By 

Mr. F. L. Dunkin Wedd - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: John Adams - The Death of Klinghoffer / Nagano, The Orchestra of the Opera de Lyon (Audio CD)

The Death of Klinghoffer was described by Gramophone as "one of the twentieth century's best operas" - and this is my view also. I found this work one of the most moving pieces of contemporary music I have ever heard. It is accessible, but never shallow; musician's music but never arcane; sensitive but never effeminate. It handles issues of complexity and difficulty with a very light touch; the political furore which surrounded its performance was never justified, and not based on either the words or music. I recommend this piece to all those of open mind as one of the great works of our time.