http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/arts/music/the-death-of-klinghoffer-helps-box-office.html 2014-10-28 23:19:05 ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ Helps Box Office “The Death of Klinghoffer” at the Metropolitan Opera is selling well, despite protests that greeted its opening. === Since John Adams’s 1991 opera, “The Death of Klinghoffer,” opened last week at the But sales data so far suggests that the controversy and coverage generated by “Klinghoffer” may turn out to be neither box office poison nor box office gold: Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said he expects the opera ultimately to earn 70 to 75 percent of its potential ticket revenue, about Advance sales for “Klinghoffer” were weak, as some opponents of the opera — many of whom had not seen it — charged that it was anti-Semitic. At protests outside Lincoln Center, several speakers likened it to Nazi propaganda and called for a boycott of the opera and, in some cases, the Met. But sales picked up after the opera opened, and music critics weighed in on the piece offering an array of reactions. Critics from a wide range of publications, including In the week after it opened, the Met sold more than 4,500 tickets to its scheduled performances; it next plays on Wednesday night. “Since the opening night of ‘Klinghoffer,’ one week ago, we have sold more tickets to it than any other opera in the repertory,” Mr. Gelb said in an interview this week. He said it had outpaced the first-week sales of Mr. Adams’s two previous operas at the Met: “Nixon in China” sold 2,400 tickets in its first week, and “Dr. Atomic” sold 3,100. But they both had stronger advance sales, and sold better overall, than “Klinghoffer” is expected to. “Klinghoffer,” which explores the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship by members of the While contemporary opera has been embraced by the Met in recent years as the company tries to attract new audiences, it can be a tough sell with its existing patrons, whose tastes are often more conservative. The accusation that “Klinghoffer” is anti-Semitic — and the disapproval of Mr. Klinghoffer’s daughters, Lisa and Ilsa, who wrote a note in the program denouncing the opera — made it an even tougher sell. The Met took some unusual steps, posting the opera’s entire