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Milan's La Scala has decided to pull from its 2006-7 programme Leonard Bernstein's "Candide", the opera house's French-born artistic director Stephane Lissner said on Thursday.
The production, directed by Canadian Robert Carsen, included actors dancing drunkenly on a polluted sea wearing masks of world leaders including US President George W. Bush, Britain's Tony Blair, Russia's Vladimir Putin and France's Jacques Chirac.
But Lissner said after watching a performance in Paris that his objections were not due to the satirical scenes but were because Carsen had inserted large parts of his own text that were not part of Bernstein's original score.
The opera "was not in line with La Scala's artistic programme," Lissner said.
Earlier this month French tenor Roberto Alagna hit the headlines around the world for storming off the stage in La Scala's production of Verdi's "Aida" after being booed.
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AFPEntertainment-Italy-opera-culture-Scala
AFP 282258 GMT 12 06
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