Where have all of the Heroes Gone?

“Why do they so adamantly refuse the heroic? Why did they insist that Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer be portrayed in the opera as they undoubtedly were in life: a nice but relatively ordinary, un-poetic, well-off Jewish couple celebrating their 36th wedding anniversary with a luxury cruise?”

To this question I would ask, why do they need to be heroic, and what is a hero? If a hero is your stereotypical idea of what you see in Hollywood films like James Bond or Zorro, then no, they are not even remotely portrayed as heroic. However, if you consider the ordeal they were facing, how are they not heroes? While watching this opera I felt incredibly on edge, it just hit extremely close to home. Have I ever been the victim of a terrorist attack or hijacking? NO. However, if I try and put myself in a situation similar to that of the Klinghoffers, I don’t know that I would have been half as courageous as they were. When face to face with your own mortality, what options do you have?

At least in the version of the opera I watched, I saw Leon Klinghoffer speak his mind, he respectfully stood up for himself, and I don’t know that I would have had the courage to even phonate around the Palestinian hijackers, forget about defending myself. And furthermore, I never felt for one second that he was shying away from the fate that awaited him, he faced a disgusting and horrific situation with honor and grace.

I feel like sometimes in opera we get caught up in the over the top drama of it all, and why not, it’s fantastic, but what is wrong with an opera trying to portray events in a realistic more intimate way? Perhaps it would have been more entertaining if Leon Klinghoffer rose out of his wheel chair and attempted to fight off the hijackers, but that’s not what happened. I think John Adams was trying to present two sides of a story, not to comment, but to present, and it was up to the audience to decide what they felt. I found Leon Klinghoffer to be very brave, and his wife was a compassionate woman deeply concerned with the well being of her husband, and not afraid to speak her mind. If you’re looking for a hero in this opera, there are a few; it just depends on your idea of what is heroic.



Fink, “Klinghoffer in Brooklyn Heights,” Cambridge Opera Journal, 2005, 17:2, 173-213.