Timesonline - 27 Sept. 2006:
“THE bloodstained King of Crete stumbles onstage and holds aloft the decapitated heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and the Prophet Muhammad. “The gods are dead!” he calls out to the audience.
German operagoers will not be seeing that scene or, indeed, any scene from one of Mozart’s most powerful works. For fear of Muslim anger, the bosses of the world-renowned Deutsche Oper in Berlin have cancelled performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo. The decision has unleashed a storm of disapproval from politicians and writers, who claim that Germany has fatally compromised the freedom of expression.”
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6 comments:
Strange, vicious times we live… Our ancestors smashed statues, burned books due to ideologies of their times. It was pathetic, indeed. We and our contemporaries cancel performances due to fear… This is even more pathetic
COuldn't they just delete that scene (apparently it's not in the original)?
I'm not sure if Berliners (let alone Germans and others in Europe and beyond) would have seen the deletion of the offending scene as different from cancelling the show. For them I suspect either way is an intolerable act of censorship.
Funny how no one was worried about the Christians or the Buddhists or the Greek Pantheists getting upset...
The pathetic thing about it though, is the scene that caused the cancellation is isn't in the original Idomeneo.
So why just not show Idomeneo unedited and unadded-to?
The people at the Oper would probably claim "creative liberty" or somethng of the sort. I'm not sure if the opera is always shown in its original conception without changes. Those more experienced with this opera are better placed to answer the question.
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