The concept of the opera originated with theatre director Peter Sellars,[1] who was a major collaborator, as was choreographer Mark Morris.

[2] Theatre director Peter Sellars developed the concept of this opera[1] and was a major collaborator, as was choreographer Mark Morris.

[3] The first performance took place at the Théatre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels, Belgium, on March 19, 1991, directed by Sellars.

An opening scene depicting a suburban family, the Rumors, was permanently cut from the score on grounds that it caused offense due to anti-Semitic stereotypes.

[8] When the original production was staged by San Francisco Opera in November 1992, the Jewish Information League mounted protests.

[12] Penny Woolcock directed a British television version of the opera, in revised form, for Channel 4, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adams; its soundtrack was made in 2001, the telecast aired in 2003, and a DVD was released on Decca in 2004.

[23] In June 2014, the Met's general manager Peter Gelb announced that after discussions with the Anti-Defamation League the planned Live in HD transmission of the production would be cancelled.

Scene 3 After the hijackers have surrendered and the surviving passengers have disembarked safely in port, the Captain remains to tell Marilyn Klinghoffer about her husband's death.

The drama is portrayed primarily in long monologues by individual characters, with commentary by the chorus, which does not take part in the action.

Both Adams and Sellars have acknowledged the affinity of the opera's dramatic structure to the sacred oratorios of Johann Sebastian Bach, in particular his Passions.

[31] Adams, Goodman, and Sellars repeatedly claimed that they were trying to give equal voice to both Israelis and Palestinians with respect to the political background.

Afterward the Klinghoffer family released the following statement about the opera: "We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the coldblooded murder of our father as the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic.

Others accused the creators of anti-Semitism for their portrayal of fictional Jewish-American neighbours of the Klinghoffers, the Rumors, in a scene in the original version.

The New York Times theater critic Edward Rothstein was particularly scathing in describing the scene and its place in the play; he described it as expressing "scorn of American Jews and anybody else without mythic claims on the world's attention" while eliminating altogether the Israeli position,[35] asking rhetorically "Who could tell from this work just what the Jewish side really is – a sort of touristy attachment to an ancient land?

"[38] John Rockwell of The New York Times, in a review of the Penny Woolcock film version, countered that the opera ultimately "shows unequivocally that murder is nothing more than that, vicious and unconscionable.

[41]In a more academic analysis, musicologist Robert Fink countered Taruskin's accusations of antisemitism, with particular reference to the deleted scene with the Rumor family.

[37] A separate academic study by Ruth Sara Longobardi discusses the opera with respect to issues about depictions of Palestinians and Jews.

She explores how the use of contemporary media in productions, such as the Penny Woolcock film of the opera, affects perception of the two sides of the political conflict.

A letter to The Juilliard Journal protested the opera as "a political statement made by the composer to justify an act of terrorism by four Palestinians."

The school's president, Joseph W. Polisi, responded with his own letter, stating that he was "a longtime friend of Israel and have visited the country on numerous occasions", as well as a recipient of the King Solomon Award from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.

[44] In addition to cancelling both broadcasts, the company agreed to include a statement from Klinghoffer's daughters in the printed program of the production.

[45]In an official statement, Adams said: "The cancellation of the international telecast is a deeply regrettable decision and goes far beyond issues of 'artistic freedom,' and ends in promoting the same kind of intolerance that the opera's detractors claim to be preventing.

"[46] In a September 2014 New York magazine piece, critic Justin Davidson denied that The Death of Klinghoffer was anti-Semitic or glorified terrorism, stating that the title character is "the opera's moral core, the one fully functioning human being."

"[48] Former New York City mayor and opera fan Rudy Giuliani wrote that while the Met had a First Amendment right to present the opera, Equally, all of us have as strong a First Amendment right to ... warn people that this work is both a distortion of history and helped, in some ways, to foster a three decade long feckless policy of creating a moral equivalency between the Palestinian Authority, a corrupt terrorist organization, and the state of Israel, a democracy ruled by law.