On 26 September 2006 the Deutsche Oper Berlin announced the cancellation of four performances of Mozart's opera Idomeneo, re di Creta , planned for November 2006, citing concerns that the production's depictions of the severed head of the Islamic prophet Muhammad raised an "incalculable security risk". "To avoid endangering its audience and employees, the management has decided against repeating Idomeneo in November 2006", the opera house said in a press release. [1]
The cancelled performances were revivals of a 2003 Idomeneo production, directed by Hans Neuenfels, which added a final scene in which King Idomeneo staggering on stage carrying a bag of the severed heads of Neptune, Jesus, and Buddha and placing each on chairs; a departure from the libretto, in which the action is set in the aftermath of the Trojan War and only Neptune features in the plot. For the 2006 performances director Neuenfels pointedly added the head of Muhammad. The scene was intended to symbolize the people's release into freedom without gods or idols.
The announcement came in the wake of controversy around Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture delivered on 12 September 2006. According to the BBC, the German press agency DPA said Berlin police had not so far recorded any direct threat to the opera house. [2] However, The New York Times reported that there was an anonymous threat in August against the theatre. [3]
The cancellation sparked a great deal of debate in Europe on the issue of self-censorship and the nature of free speech in a multicultural community that includes potentially violent Muslims. On 27 September 2006, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel stated: "I think the cancellation was a mistake. I think self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practise violence in the name of Islam ... It makes no sense to retreat." [4] Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, after a government-sponsored conference with Muslim representatives held independently of the incident, told reporters that "[t]o send a signal, we could all go to the performance together", and the Muslim representatives agreed that the performance should not be cancelled. [5]
On 18 December 2006, the Berlin Opera staged Mozart's work with the newly added controversial ending scene amid mixed reactions, but no incidents (with a small security force and large foreign media contingent). Demonstrators were present outside, as well, including supporters of religious tolerance and Christian protesters (presumably relating to the inclusion of the severed head of Jesus). Various members of German government attended with German Muslim groups, with the notable exception of the central Muslim Council's general secretary, Aiman Mazyek , who was quoted by Al Jazeera English as saying, "It's part of the concept of freedom of opinion and thought that you also have the right to say you are not going.". [6]
Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante is an Italian-language opera seria by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, based on a 1705 play by Crébillion père, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it may have been Mozart. The work premiered on 29 January 1781 at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, Germany.
L'oca del Cairo is an incomplete Italian opera buffa in three acts, begun by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in July 1783 but abandoned in October. The complete libretto by Giambattista Varesco remains. Mozart composed seven of the ten numbers of the first act, plus some recitative, as well a sketch for a further aria; the extant music amounts to about 45 minutes.
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is a German opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. The resident building is the country's second largest opera house and also home to the Berlin State Ballet.
Cheryl Studer is an American dramatic soprano who has sung at many of the world's foremost opera houses. Studer has performed more than eighty roles ranging from the dramatic repertoire to roles more commonly associated with lyric sopranos and coloratura sopranos, and, in her late stage, mezzo-sopranos. She is particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner.
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Edith Mathis is a Swiss soprano and a leading exponent of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart worldwide. She is known for parts in Mozart operas, but also took part in premieres of operas such as Henze's Der junge Lord.
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Klaus Zehelein is a German dramaturge. He was president of the Munich Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding. Zehelein is also president of the association of German theatres, Deutscher Bühnenverein. For fifteen years, from 1991 until 2006, Zehelein was artistic director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart. Critic Gerhard Rohde, summing up Zehelein's theatre work at the Stuttgart opera, says "Zehelein does not view opera as a culinary phenomenon. For him opera is an extremely complex matter, where all arts – as well as social, philosophical, historic, utopic and other aspects – unite. This complexity of opera merits being perceived, being seen, being experienced; thus all works that end up performed on stage, are rigorously analyzed beforehand. He who says this results in thinned-out, merely sophisticated opera performances, missed out substantially in the Zehelein-Era in Stuttgart."
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