John Adams's opera The Death of Klinghoffer stages the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. This essay proposes that the representations of Palestinian hijackers in three different productions show the opera reinventing itself before and after 9/11, when Arab identity hovers ambiguously in the U.S. Imaginary. Analyses focus in particular on distinct forms of collaboration among artists and media. In 1991 thorny associations among media produce an ambiguous Arab subject that reflects, and encourages, a capability for dialogue around the topic of terrorism. By contrast, two productions in 2003 rely on film and photograph to situate rigidly delineated Palestinian characters—demonstrating a dependency on visual media and a consequent highlighting of race that may be emblematic of a post-9/11 era. The essay concludes that different forms of collaboration in The Death of Klinghoffer can be approached as a microcosm of social and political interactions taking place far beyond the opera proper.

The bulk of Leonard Bernstein's first book, The Joy of Music (1959), consists of three imaginary conversations and seven scripts of Omnibus lectures intended for the education of lay audiences. These texts have long been admired for their pedagogy but have largely been ignored as reflections of Bernstein's aesthetic views. This article proposes that The Joy of Music functions not only as a pedagogical document but also as an aesthetic manifesto preparing Bernstein's audiences for some of his best compositions—especially the Third Symphony (Kaddish; 1963, rev. 1977) and West Side Story (1957). In the context of The Joy of Music, Kaddish appears as the fulfillment of “the real American symphonic form” and West Side Story as the ultimate American musical stage work, that is, a work that is as sophisticated as opera but rooted in the American musical.

Eminem's emergence as one of the most popular rap stars of 2000 raised numerous questions about the evolving meaning of whiteness in U.S. society. Comparing The Slim Shady LP (1999) with his relatively unknown and commercially unsuccessful first album, Infinite (1996), reveals that instead of transcending racial boundaries as some critics have suggested, Eminem negotiated them in ways that made sense to his target audiences. In particular, Eminem's influential single “My Name Is,” which helped launch his mainstream career, parodied various representations of whiteness to help counter charges that the white rapper lacked authenticity or was simply stealing black culture. This “rearticulation” of whiteness in hip hop paralleled a number of other ideological realignments in the 1990s, many of which pit questions of class against those of race in the service of constructing new political and cultural authenticities. Eminem's performances provide us with a mirror in which numerous questions surrounding whiteness's significance come into focus.