The Death of Klinghoffer is an American opera, with music by John Adams to an English-language libretto by Alice Goodman. First produced in Brussels and New York in 1991, the opera is based on the hijacking of the passenger liner Achille Lauro by the Palestine Liberation Front in 1985, and the resulting murder of Jewish-American passenger Leon Klinghoffer. The concept of the opera originated with theatre director Peter Sellars, who was a major collaborator, as was the choreographer Mark Morris. It was commissioned by five American and European opera companies, as well as the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The opera was originally commissioned through a consortium of five opera companies, including La Monnaie, San Francisco Opera, Opéra de Lyon, Los Angeles Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera, as well as the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The first performance took place at the Théatre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels, Belgium, on 19 March 1991, directed by Sellars. The first US performance was at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on 5 September 1991. Because of the ensuing controversy and reaction to the subject matter and philosophy of the opera (see below), the Glyndebourne and Los Angeles productions did not take place. When the original production was staged at San Francisco Opera in November 1992, the Jewish Information League staged protests.

The next full staging of the opera did not occur until February 2001, in Helsinki at Finnish National Opera. The first complete UK performance was a 2002 concert in London by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Penny Woolcock directed a British television version of the opera, in revised form, for Channel 4, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adams; its soundtrack was made in 2001, the telecast aired in 2003, and a DVD was released on Decca in 2004. The first Australasian performance took place in February 2005 at the Auckland Festival, New Zealand. The first fully staged UK production was given in August 2005 at the Edinburgh Festival by Scottish Opera.

The opera received new concert performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 2003, and the Curtis Institute of Music, through its Curtis Opera Theatre and Curtis Symphony Orchestra, gave a performance in Philadelphia in February 2005. Four years later, students at the Juilliard Opera Center performed a semi-staged concert version with Adams conducting. The Death of Klinghoffer received its second full American staging in June 2011 at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, directed by James Robinson. The opera received its first London production on 25 February 2012 at English National Opera, in a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera, which is scheduled to stage the opera in the 2014-2015 season. After being dropped from production by co-commissioner Los Angeles Opera, the opera will finally receive its Los Angeles area premiere in March 2014 with Long Beach Opera, conducted by Andreas Mitisek and staged by James Robinson.