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On Luca Guadagnino’s staging of “The Death of Klinghoffer” at the Maggio Musicale in Florence.
A librettist-turned-priest, a dramatic soprano, and the creative director of Christian Dior walk into a bar called Crisco Disco. It’s a late April evening in Florence, and the room smells of high-end fragrances, mildew, and poppers. A bear in a SnapBack is spinning tech house. Dancers dance. The walls are covered with guides to the hanky code and posters from decades-past leather weekends. Everyone is talking about Palestine. Lit in a red wash, men in tuxedos mingle with men in sports shorts and circuit party sneakers; and the dressed-down men, some of them, regard the scene, their bar overwhelmed with opera singers and patrons on a sleepy Sunday, with an open-mouthed, stricken expression.