Heads Will Roll
I don’t really like opera, even though [people of culture] are supposed to like it. I recall my feelings of vindication once when I saw Sir Kenneth Clark in his classic BBC series Civilisation say that opera was an “irrational” form of entertainment.
Nevertheless, I am ashamed of Kirsten Harms, the director of Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, for giving into the threat of Muslim violence:
BERLIN (Reuters) - German politicians condemned on Tuesday a decision by a Berlin opera house to cancel performances of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” over concerns they could enrage Muslims and pose a security risk.
The Deutsche Oper in west Berlin announced on Monday it was replacing four performances of “Idomeneo” scheduled for November with “The Marriage of Figaro” and “La Traviata.”
The decision was taken after Berlin security officials warned that putting on the opera as planned would present an “incalculable security risk” for the establishment.
In the production, directed by Hans Neuenfels, King Idomeneo is shown staggering on stage next to the severed heads of Buddha, Jesus, Poseidon and the Prophet Mohammad, which sit on chairs.
This is just insane. When the threat of Islamofascist violence should even be anticipated in the production of a centuries-old Mozart opera, you know that something is wrong.
The fundamentalist Muslim is testing you, Europe. He is probing the limits of your self-loathing pacifist mentality.
Don’t forget the old Chinese proverb: It is far easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
