Fear of Muslim Anger Cancels Opera Performances in Berlin

BERLIN: A leading German opera house has canceled performances of a Mozart opera because of security fears stirred by a scene that depicts the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, prompting a storm of protest here about what many see as the surrender of artistic freedom.

The Deutsche Oper in Berlin said it had pulled "Idomeneo" from its autumn schedule after the police warned of an "incalculable risk" to the performers and the audience.

The Deutsche Oper's director, Kirsten Harms, said she regretted the decision but felt she had no choice because she was "responsible for all the people on the stage, behind the stage and in front of the stage."

Political and cultural figures throughout Germany condemned the cancellation, which is without precedent here. Some said it recalled the decision of European newspapers not to print satirical cartoons about Muhammad, after their publication in Denmark generated a furor among Muslims.

The cancellation fanned a debate in Europe about whether the West was compromising its values, like free expression, to avoid stoking anger in the Muslim world.

Already in Germany, there is growing sentiment that Pope Benedict XVI may have overdone his contrition for a recent speech in his native Bavaria, in which he cited a historical reference to Islam as "evil and inhuman." The speech set off waves of protests in Muslim countries.

The German interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, who has defended the pope and called for more dialogue with Muslims in Europe, said that canceling the opera was unacceptable and "crazy." Michael Naumann, a former German culture minister, said, "It's a slap in the face of artistic freedom, by the artists themselves."

Naumann, now publisher of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, added, "The pope showed the way by being so extraordinarily apologetic."

The sulfurous public reaction prompted some people to speculate that the decision might eventually be reversed.

Harms herself said that "Idomeneo," which was first staged by the Deutsche Oper in 2003, would remain on the opera's program. It could be performed later, Harms said, though she would have to consider the political and diplomatic aspects of "this complex issue."

"Idomeneo," first performed in 1781, tells a mythical story of Poseidon, or Neptune, the god of the sea, who toys with men's lives and demands spiteful sacrifice.

The disputed scene is not part of Mozart's opera but was added as a sort of coda by the director, Hans Neuenfels. In it, the king of Crete, Idomeneo, carries the heads of Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha and Poseidon onto the stage, placing each on a stool.

The scene aroused controversy among Muslims and Christians when the Deutsche Oper first staged the production. But the opera was not the target of any organized protests, and the Deutsche Oper scheduled four performances for November.

The Berlin police said they received a call this summer from an unidentified person, who warned that the opera was "damaging to religious feelings." The caller did not make a specific threat against the opera.

"All this came in light of the cartoon controversy," said a police spokesman, Uwe Kozelnik.

"We started to investigate and finally concluded that disturbances could not be ruled out."

While the police said they did not pressure the Deutsche Oper to cancel the production, they supported the decision. Berlin's chief official for security matters, Ehrhart Körting, drew a parallel between the decision and that of German papers to resist reprinting the cartoons depicting Muhammad.

"Even the German journalists' association criticized the reprinting of the cartoons because their publication could hurt the religious feelings of one group of people," Körting said in a statement.

Muslim leaders in Germany reacted cautiously to the furor.

The leader of the Islamic Council, Ali Kizilkaya, told a radio station in Berlin that he welcomed the cancellation, saying a depiction of a decapitated Muhammad "could certainly offend Muslims."

"Nevertheless, of course, I think it is horrible that one has to be afraid," Kizilkaya said, according to The Associated Press.

"That is not the right way to open dialogue."

The head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Ayyub Axel Köhler, declined to comment on the opera's decision, saying he wanted to learn more about the circumstances.

Those circumstances appear to be in some dispute. At a news conference, Harms said she broached with Neuenfels the possibility of removing the offending scene ? something she did not want to do.

When he resisted, she let the matter drop.

However, a lawyer for Neuenfels, Peter Raue, said Harms called the director Sept. 9 to tell him she planned to cancel the performances. The issue of tinkering with the scene never came up, Raue said, and in any event, "you couldn't change it; it is part of the story."

The scene devised by Neuenfels puts a sanguinary ending on an opera that, in the way Mozart wrote it, ends with King Idomeneo giving up his throne to appease the god of the sea, and blessing the romantic union of his son, Idamante, with the Greek princess Ilia.

The severed heads of the religious figures, Raue said, was meant by Neuenfels to make a point that "all the founders of religions were figures that didn't bring peace to the world."

André Kraft, spokesman for the Komische Oper, a more adventurous opera house, where Neuenfels is engaged in another Mozart production, described the 65-year-old director as "a secularist who does not believe religion solves the problems of the world." Judy Dempsey of the International Herald Tribune reported from Berlin and Mark Landler of The New York Times from Frankfurt.

c.2006 I.H.T /iht.com