Brooklyn.(In Reviews: from around the world: Concerts)(The Death of Klinghoffer at Brooklyn Academy of Music)(Opera Review)

The intrusive, airport-style security search at the Brooklyn Academy of Music could mean only one thing: The Death of Klinghoffer was back, after twelve years (heard Dec. 5). John Adams and Alice Goodman's opera, of which everyone debates the libretto and no one mentions the music, was revived by BAM and the enterprising Brooklyn Philharmonic in what was billed as a staged concert. However, though the chorus (the excellent New York Virtuoso Singers) sang from secures, the principals were admirably off-book, and the orchestra played from a covered pit.

Onstage, the soloists were mostly placed between two proscenium-spanning screens, the front one translucent, on which film and scenic elements were projected. Direction, by Bob McGrath of New York's Ridge Theater, consisted mostly of very careful placement of the principals on a few platforms under Matt Frey's attentive lighting plan. The approach seemed a gamble in prospect, but the result was a series of stage pictures not only eloquent in themselves but carefully attuned to the colors in the score. In fact, the staging was only ineffective when it was most conventional, as in a couple of quick crossovers.

This version ought to bring Klinghoffer to a wider range of audiences. Many passages were restored that had been cut for Penny Woolcock's film adaptation of the opera, another view of the work that proved ...