 | Where else but in the Guardian? |
Composer John Adams accuses US of paranoia and says its security forces are following him
John Adams, one of the most revered living classical composers, ...
| ... in the proper neighborhoods of Manhattan ... |
| He ain't no Mozart. In fact, he wouldn't be fit to dust Salieri's shoes... |
... has claimed that he is blacklisted in his native America and is being followed by the security services.
| ... which might include his music... |
The 61-year-old musician has accused the United States of being in the grip of a political and moral panic and has complained that he is now grilled by airport immigration officers whenever he flies home because of his controversial reputation.
| But he won't make his home in the tony districts of London or Paris ... |
| Mention "John Adams" to most people and they think "Abigail," unless they're not quite on top of things, in which case they think "Dolly Madison." |
Adams made his name 20 years ago with his opera Nixon in China.
| There was a real toe-tapper ... |
| I vaguely recall hearing excerpts of pretentious honking and hooting. Has it ever been played again since? Or do they have it filed away with the "Yellow River Concerto"? |
| It sounds better in the original Klingon ... |
Although it is now regarded as a landmark in modern music,
| ... which is just littered with operatic Kilamanjaros and symphonic Fujis and Matterhorns and such... |
the opera made headlines when it opened because it was heavily critical of the former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
| Real courageous. No one has ever been critical of Kissinger before or since ... |
 | I can remember how surprised everybody was at the time... |
Then the content of The Death of Klinghoffer, Adams's 1991 opera about the Palestinian Liberation Front's 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, provoked a storm of protest for its treatment of the murder of a disabled Jewish passenger.
| In which Mr. Adams romances the terrorists and puts them on an equal moral footing as an old man in a wheelchair who was dumped overboard. Mr. Adams said it was something about 'poetic justice' ... |
| Well, y'know, he was an old man. He was gonna die soon, and y'cant' make an omelette without breaking eggs or maybe dropping them into the Mediterranean... |
Interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters yesterday, Adams said he was now 'blacklisted'.
| "They got a list at the National Symphony Orchestra. I seen it. My name's got a big black mark next to it." |
'I can't check in at the airport now without my ID being taken and being grilled.
| Do they make you take off your shoes? |
"Hey, Bob! Check this guy out! Sez his name's John Adams!"
"Huh. Thought he was dead. How y'doin', Mr. President? How's Dolly? You sure don't look 273!" |
You know, I'm on a homeland security list, probably because of having written The Death of Klinghoffer, so I'm perfectly aware that I, like many artists and many thoughtful people in the country, am being followed.'
| Such lovely, thoughtful people who believe the terrorists are of higher moral worth than their own countrymen ... |
| "They're really good at it though. Sometimes I turn around real quick, without warning, to catch 'em at it, but they're not there. They're too fast for me! That sez they're professionals, prob'ly the CIA or maybe the Rosicrucians." |
The suggestion that Adams, who received a Pulitzer Prize for the choral work he wrote to commemorate the victims of 9/11, does not feel welcome in his own country will send shock waves through the musical world.
| And they're easily shocked ... |
"John Adams? Not welcome in his own country? I am so shocked!"
"Me, too. I just can't understand it. Dolly is such a nice lady!" |
The impact of his remarks will be amplified by the fact that his 2005 opera Doctor Atomic has its New York premiere at the Metropolitan Opera tomorrow, in a production directed by British film-maker Penny Woolcock.
| I was gonna go, but I have to wash my hair that night. |
| I'm rewinding my DVDs ... |
During the interview, presenter Petroc Trelawny
| Is that Professor Trelawny, from the Harry Potter movies? How can she see with those glasses? |
asked Adams if he felt that America was living through an age of paranoia that resembled the McCarthy era of the Fifties.
| And you're just wondering what the answer to that question will be, aren't you ... |
| Keep in mind that while some people will tell you that the McCarthy era ended in the early 50s, and others will tell you it ended with Kennedy's election, and still others will tell you that it ended last Thursday, those who Really Know will tell you that it never ended, that Tailgunner Joe retains his seat, if only figuratively, and continues rooting out innocent commies from the State Department, the arts, the sciences, and the janitorial staff of the Smithsonian... |
'Well it is, and of course Congress has continued to sign off on these Patriot Acts that continue to clip the wings of human rights,' said Adams, adding that poets, novelists and musicians with left-wing leanings are often watched, including, he said, the American composer Aaron Copland,
who was 'hounded' all his life. 'I'm sure the FBI had a large file on him. So we artists assume that we are being followed.'
| Feeling a little self-important? You couldn't carry Copland's quill ... |
| ... and neither of them's a Prokofiev... |
Adams - whose autobiography, Hallelujah Junction, is out this month - was born in New Hampshire in 1947.
| He's so persecuted that he composes his operas, writes his music, and publishes his book all without any government interference ... |
His mother was a Democratic volunteer in the crucial presidential election primaries held there every four years. 'She was a passionate liberal and I've always had a fascination with political life,' he said.
| You wonder if 'passionate liberal' is a code-phrase ... |
| I thought it was French for "dipshit." |
Adams went to Harvard in 1966, but abandoned his music studies for a factory job because he wanted to compose.
| I suppose that makes sense somewhere ... |
| Wanted to write proletarian music, y'see. To which I reply "Gershwin lives, lived and will live." |
His success was crowned following 9/11, when the New York Philharmonic invited him to compose an 'aural monument' to the victims of the terrorist attacks.
His choral ode, On the Transmigration of Souls, was premiered by the orchestra in 2002.
| Which is comprised of a lot of pre-recorded sounds played through a blender and mixed with live instruments that hoot and screech. |
However, Adams believes that the Republican administration manipulated the memory of the attacks. '9/11 was a very glamorous event,' he said. 'I'm using the term in a very ironic sense - 3,000 people being killed; it's a terrible tragedy, but in the scale of human tragedy it's very small.
| Unless it's your family or friend, but heck, who cares about that ... |
| The English lost 112 dead at Agincourt. The Athenians lost 192 men at the Battle of Marathon. The Austrians lost 963 dead at Marengo. At the Battle of Actium Marc Anthony and Cleopatra lost something like 5000 dead. The Habsburg-Polish forces lost 4000 dead at the Battle of Vienna. Such losses are pretty small potatoes compared to the Marne or Kursk or Okinawa, I guess. But somehow they managed their significance, however paltry. Our losses on 9-11-01 (2,998) were greater than our human losses at Pearl Harbor (2,402). |
'I think Americans went into what the novelist Philip Roth ...
| ... another knuckle-head ... |
... called "an orgy of narcissism" as a result of 9/11 - we kept replaying those images and kept re-reminding ourselves of what an indignation and how horrible and terrible that event was.
| There's a large empty space inside this man's soul, isn't there? We replayed those images in our minds to remind ourselves who was responsible, and why, and to strengthen our resolve not to let it happen again. |
| I'm trying to imagine anything more narcissistic than airily waving a damp, limp hand to dismiss the genuine human grief and anger of 9-11. To paraphrase Curly, "I'm tryin' to imagine and nuttin's happ'nin'!" |
And then, of course, we struck out by invading the wrong country.'
| As if you would have responded well to invading any other country ... |
|
