The London stage premiere of The Death Of Klinghoffer, John Adams’s controversial docu-opera about the killing of a Jewish-American tourist during the hijacking of a Mediterranean cruise liner by Palestinian militants.

Alice Goodman’s libretto mixes Biblical and Koranic references with real and imagined accounts of what happened on board. Adams’s intensely expressive score captures the private thoughts and emotions of individuals caught up in the complexities of a political and religious conflict that still defies solution.

Tom Morris, co-director of the National Theatre’s War Horse, makes his opera directing debut with The Death Of Klinghoffer, while Baldur Brönnimann, who conducted English National Opera’s Lost Highway and Le Grand Macabre, applies his contemporary expertise to what many regard as Adams’s finest opera.