Berlin's Deutsche Oper has decided not to stage an adaptation of Idomeneo for fear of offending Muslims.
"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."
It is troubling that the fear of a Muslim backlash forced the opera house to back down. Slightly less outrageous, but still worthy of scorn, is the nature of Hans Neuenfels's adaptation.
The original Idomeneo is about the intersection of war and love between the Trojans and Cretans. Since then, in a fate shared with Shakespeare's Henry V, the Idomeneo has been distorted by all manner of political agitators to make jejune anti-war statements.
We do not yet have details of how the cancelled Neuenfel version was to be staged, but it would likely have been a stark a departure from the original production, where, let me assure you, there were no cameos by Buddha, Christ, or Muhammad. Like perusing Vasari's Lives of the Artists for an entry on Christo, this sort of thing is historically ignorant and a waste of everyone's time.
Several years ago, I watched, to my utter horror, Peter Sellars' adaptation of Idomeneo. In it, the Idomeneo depicts President Bush, Arbace Prime Minister Blair, and Idomeneo's son Idamante has scandalously fallen in love with Illia, a Muslim prisoner of war. Distortive of the actual play, and as troubling as staging Romeo & Juliet in modern dress, these scandalous adaptations have no place in an opera house.
Even though the staging of Idomeneo was cancelled for the wrong reasons, let us at least be somewhat glad that it was cancelled.
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