New Low Notes

It is a little-known opera of Mozart's. Idomeneo, King of Crete takes place at the end of the Trojan War and features a proposed human sacrifice and a nasty sea monster. But it was thrust into the world's spotlight when Berlin's Deutsche Oper cancelled three performances of the opera because of fears that they would anger Muslims. The problem does not derive from the opera's libretto; rather, Deutsche Oper's director Hans Neuenfels had added a scene in which King Idomeneo walks on stage carrying the severed heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad. The cancellation has unleashed a storm of protest and a new round of hand wringing about political correctness and the fate of European civilization.

"Why must we cower before Islam?" blared the mass circulation Bild, whose pages included a photo montage of the German Reichstag, or parliament, with minarets poking from the roof. "Cowardice before the enemy!" stewed John Dew, the artistic director of Darmstadt's state theater in Die Welt, a newspaper. German politicians denounced the decision as "kneeling to terrorism". The ordinarily understated Chancellor Angela Merkel called the decision to cancel the show "unbearable".

In an attempt to cool things down, the head of Germany's Turkish Community, Kenan Kolat, suggested that the 30 participants at a government-sponsored Islamic conference meeting in Berlin attend together a special showing of the opera as a gesture, an idea the government has approved though the Oper itself has yet to make a decision. "We are moving in the direction of a clash of civilizations," Kolat told TIME. "I understand the feelings of those who may be hurt by the depiction but in the 21st century, art should be free and independent of religion."

Neuenfels' production, first staged in 2003, is intended to be a symbolic gesture about the dangers of fanaticism. Although the production caused barely a ripple, except to impress the critics in its earlier showings, the climate has changed since then.

In July, Germany's state police in Wiesbaden said they received an anonymous telephone call from a woman expressing concern that the opera, due to be staged this fall, could offend Muslim sensibilities. A subsequent study by Berlin police found that it could not "exclude the possibility" that something bad would happen, noting that decapitation could be associated with the videos distributed by militant terrorists. Berlin senator, Erhart Körting telephoned the Deutsche Oper's artistic director Kirsten Harms to recommend that she cancel the show because he did not want harm to come to the opera house. Harms agreed, hastily convening a press conference this week in the cavernous lobby of the modernist Deutsche Oper to announce that future performances would pose "incalculable risks" to the public.

The ensuing fracas followed what is becoming a familiar pattern in Europe, following the Danish publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed last year, and the Pope's recent quotation of an early 15th Century Byzantine Emperor, which produced an angry response in the Muslim world.

This time the outrage quickly spread from the artistic community to the political world. Neuenfels called the decision to call it off a mistake. He said his staging had nothing to do with Islam but was instead intended to show how the hero was dispensing with fanaticism of all kinds. "We shouldn't betray 200 years of (rational) discourse in the spirit of the enlightenment," Klaus Zehelein, the head of the German Stage Association told Die Welt. Zehelein said he was "very impressed" with the production and that "only fundamentalists could feel hurt by it." Tobias Wellemeyer, general director of Magdeburg's theater said that: "Art doesn't consist of being considerate. Every artist must be able to show his subjective opinion radically."

German politicians were quick to enter the fray, linking the incident to increasingly rancorous disputes flickering across the continent about the integration of Muslim immigrants and terrorism carried out in Islam's name. Bavarian Interior Minister Günther Beckstein said that integration didn't consist of "giving up our legal system and our system of values in favor of the shari'a". Respondents to an online survey on the website of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung showed almost 50% of an estimated 4,600 respondents agreeing the cancellation was "scandalous and cowardly." Just 5% said the decision was "to be respected".

The irony is that there is scant evidence that Muslims were seriously outraged by the staging to begin with. Oguz Ocuncu, the general secretary of Milli Gorus, Germany's most radical Muslim association, with 35,000 members, said in a statement that "every religion must be able to tolerate religious criticism on operatic stages. One should not meddle with artistic freedom." Such comments indicate a new willingness by Muslim leaders to speak out forcefully in an attempt to ease tensions — the only positive sequel to a dispiriting affair.

It is not clear what will happen now. Thomas Flierl, Berlin's left wing Senator for Culture said Wednesday the opera should be brought back as soon as possible. "Berlin wants this production," he said. Advocates note that a special staging for members of the Islamic conference in Berlin, as is now being considered, will still leave the impression that the city has bowed to some unseen threat. "Fear is the terrorists first victory," said Edmund Stoiber, head of the governing Christian democrats sister party, the Christian Social Union. This incident may have had nothing to do with terrorism, but, as with good opera, it's what the audience believes that counts.