Edition: U.S. / Global  CLASSICAL VIEW; 'Klinghoffer' Sinks Into
Minimal Sea  By Edward Rothstein Published: September 15, 1991
In the second act of the opera "The Death of Klinghoffer," an
enormous tube of fluorescent light slowly descends through the
scaffoldlike industrial set. It is accompanied by pulsing,
shifting tonal chords, the chorus singing sustained "Ah" 's and
a Palestinian terrorist invoking martyrdom. The scene seems to
pay homage to another minimalist opera, Philip Glass's "Einstein
on the Beach." In that work (first seen in New York in 1976), a
fluorescent beam was languidly lowered, splitting the stage's
universe as the music's patter slowed the passage of time.
Whether the homage was real or a critic's imagining,
"Klinghoffer," which ended its run at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music on Friday, is in a tradition that began triumphantly with
that epic and its imagistic staging by Robert Wilson, and which
has since sputtered into cliche and mannerism. In between have
come Mr. Glass's other oper