ENI – German chancellor Angela Merkel has criticised as “self censorship” the cancellation of a Mozart opera in Berlin because of concern that a scene featuring the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad could lead to attacks by Muslims.
“Self censorship because of fear is intolerable,” Merkel said , following the decision of a Berlin opera house not to stage Mozart's opera, Idomeneo, the German Protestant news agency epd reported.
The cancellation of the scheduled November performance of the opera came under fierce criticism from German artists and politicians including Berlin's governing mayor Klaus Wowereit who said the decision was wrong. He said he was not aware of any “specific threat that justified the cancellation of the opera.”
The opera portrays the rebellion of human beings against their gods. In the production that was to have been performed at Berlin's Deutsche Oper, Idomeneo appears in the epilogue with a bloody bag, from which he pulls out the severed heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad.
