Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was among those who showed up at the Metropolitan Opera last night to denounce the production of
The Death of Klinghoffer, which protesters say glorifies terrorism.
Chanting "Shame on the Met!" protesters, numbering about 400, said the performance of the 20-year-old opera, by minimalist-inspired composer
John Adams, was an affront to the memory of Leon Klinghoffer, a passenger on the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro, which was hijacked by members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1985. Klinghoffer, 69, was shot in his wheelchair and dumped overboard.
The New York Times says: "Political figures, including ... Giuliani, joined a rally, several hundred strong at Lincoln Center, to denounce an opera that has become the object of a charged debate about art, anti-Semitism and politics."