Cripes!
Cancelled!— The more you appease the fundamentalists, the bolder they get. Why don’t we just let them tell us what to do. Now we can’t watch a Mozart Opera in peace because it offends someone.
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 decision seemed likely to fan a debate in Germany, and perhaps elsewhere in Europe, about whether the West was compromising its values, including free expression, to avoid stoking anger in the Muslim world.
Not that it changes the essence of the story, there is an important fact from the IHT piece that should be quoted in your item:
“The disputed scene is not part of Mozart’s 225-year-old 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, god of the sea, onto the stage, placing each on a stool”
Dissing Poseidon is enough to turn me into a suicide bomber…
How do we know the threat was actually from a Muslim fundamentalist group? It could be from a competing opera house down the street that wanted to steal some business.
Humans are wily creatures that will use any ruse that works. That is evolution. Whatever works.
I’d object to seeing a dog’s head carried around, too. Jesus, Buddah, and Poseidon, however, well that’s just funny.
The pulling of Mozart is just a statement of how too many are afraid to speak up. Fear: the by line of this age.
Could you image how many works of art would never have been created if the artists acted in fear?
The work is suppose to stir up passions and issues.
I think its time for us to be free.
http://www.personaltao.com/tao/freedom.htm
Its not about truth or lies. This is about action and the ability to stand up and be ourselves.
And its simple, just act by being yourself.
Its not a question of telling others how to act
Its not about being afraid of the smack down when you do something labeled as wrong
Its not about government control or censorship.
Its about each of us, being ourselves. Not in fear but in our own motions of living.
Will it hurt: of course since life isn’t about comfort, its a fire. Sadly we have remove the fire,
taken the matches away and have added a nice digital image of the flames for everyone to watch.
Modern media isn’t about life, its about image…
Turn it off. Tune into yourself.
Live, smile, be, risk try and then fly (and fall to the ground to pick yourself up again to try again)
The answer is really that simple. Life isn’t to fly, but its to try… and in the trying we are alive.
If you are only willing to do it.
At least Mozart is still flying , at least when we play his work that is.
WOW,
sounds like a SELF policing time.
Get the person NEXT to you to search you, search under the seat, and every thing that AINT supposed to be there, SHOOT it.
This would get everyone being NICE to each other, and Also breeds abit of contemp in some.
I think its time to stand up and risk the “Muslem Anger”. I have heard that the only thing Islam respects is the “back of your hand”
Sadly – Its back of the hand time.
This just argues for staying in Iraq, however its time to do it right with overwhelming force.
I do think there’s a time to tell someone to go screw themselves. Let’s not forget there are many radical Christian Fundamentalist that would condemn any dissenters to the burning regions. In fact just a few hundred years ago Christians did so on a regular bases. Mary I of England probably burned more English Protestants alive in a few years than Islamic terrorists killed this century. This constant association of Islam with terror is making any reconciliation impossible.
I’d say the constant association by Muslim appologists like yourself of European history a few hunderd years ago to today is a bigger problem than those recognizing that it’s only Muslims who are violent today.
The Falwell crew may be annoying, but they haven’t flown any planes into buildings recently.
I don’t see what the problem is; after all, the head of Jesus was carried on the stage as well, kind of like equal time. The scary part is the Germans are supposed to be the ballsy Europeans, and all it took was one unidentified caller to frighten them into an appeasement frenzy.
Durka durka muhammad jihad!
If y’all would take the time to read, you’d see that there were no actual threats made to the Opera.
The Opera was cancelled because the local police said there would be an “incalculable danger” in performing the Opera as proposed. At least this article says “incalculable danger.” I tend to think that they warned against an unknown level of danger. A German-speaker may want to check the primary sources and report back.
The only thing resembling a threat was a single caller during the summer who apparently thought that the Opera may be a bad idea.
So, no – the crazy Muslims did not force this Opera to close. This was an exercise in self-censorship.
Remember: Reading is Fundamental
You guys are so funny. And so unaccountably fearless – emphasis on the “unaccountable” part. C’mon, John, why don’t you tell us what you really think of Muhammad (PBUH)?
RBG
“The disputed scene is not part of Mozart’s 225-year-old 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, god of the sea, onto the stage, placing each on a stool”
sounds good to me…
accountable for what? for criticizing a group who seems to be completely intolerant towards criticism?
Well, this is typical of religious extremists – forcing their beliefs on everyone esle (this includes christians, muslims, etc).
bhudsists to a lesser degree (since they’re so focused on “personal enlightenment” that they dont usually act as the thought police)
“The disputed scene is not part of Mozart’s 225-year-old opera, but was added as a sort of coda by the director, Hans Neuenfels.”
Why not offer the opera as the composer wrote it? I’d refuse to go because someone thought they could make Mozart’s music better by adding their own junk to it.
Mike
durka durks, jihad!
sorry, durka durka, damn keyboard!
15. Exactly. …but not anonymously. Otherwise who can’t criticize so fearlessly with their shiny principles? You may as well join this Mozart Opera.
RBG
Ok … for one, the heads of the other religious founders were displayed along with Mohammed – they’re insulting everyone (even more for adding Poseiden, who likely hasn’t been worshiped on a large scale since Rome) … so what – its an advertising gimmick, to stir up controversy, and bring people in – then someone took a look at the Denmark situation and got cold feet … no biggie, no one gets insulted, everything works out mostly
as for the assertion that it is just the Muslims that are using terror in modern times — unfortunately wrong – N. Ireland is just starting to come out of a civil war between Catholic and Protestant, and the refugee camp massacre perpetrated by Lebanese Christians isn’t all that far in the past. There are wack jobs that will use any religion to meet their ends …
one more thing – most of the Fundamentalist Christians would just figure “they’ll burn anyway, I don’t need to help them along” and let it drop …
#4, I’d object to seeing a dog’s head carried around, too. Jesus, Buddah, and Poseidon, however, well that’s just funny.
Comment by James Hill — 9/27/2006 @ 10:28 am
Why? Look too much like your sister?
Cancel the show? That wouldn’t be Bushes response. Let the Opera go on but tap the phone lines of everyone buying tickets, just in case. Then strip search the grandmothers. Give anal probes to a few of the men too. Fill the Opera House with cameras watched over by the NSC, or German equivalent.
well at least from the outcry it looks like they may go on with the show.
now I wonder if we can start about going ahead with some sanity too, rather than the whole world acting like some three stooge slap fest…
its all very silly and sad.
I met one fellow who said when the rest of the world can be like new york city, then there will be peace. You know, there is some wisdom in that, as new york city is a melting pot and it a strange way it does work.
oh well back to watching the stooges (the world leaders as other call them) get back to their slapping games
I first heard of this as a headline on NPR, and was incensed as well, except that I had a hard time recalling anything that controversial in Idomeneo. The libretto was authored by the court chaplain Veresco, who despite being a poor writer (Mozart evidently thought so), would have neverthless been at least publicly devout. So it’s unlikely that he would have even attempted to weave in Jesus or Mohammed into a story involving ancient Greeks. Which lends credence to my belief that this version of the libretto probably also, well, sucks.
Lets hope this opera basically falls on its face; fault the fundies of any religion for being overzealous but this opera has already gotten more attention that it deserves. I don’t think the world is necessarily a poorer place because an opera with a bad story line got shut down.
All righty then..
As the only one who’ll step up and vote on this..
I vote #17 and #26 as tied for the most intelligent comments on this subject. I believe, as a male member, (my name ain’t Dick, however), that my superior intelligence over all women qualifies me to vote thusly.. Anyone think all these Muslims need is a good spanking from Mo or Muhammed ?!? Get ’em Ali !!
Oh please! One person calls in and now you’re gonna accuse 1,000,000,000 Muslims of fundamentalism?!!!!
This is what the westerners needs to do (in this order):
1. Get the hell out of Muslim lands,
3. Get a f* conscience, and finally,
2. Get a f* backbone and do whatever opera you please.
I thought it was in bad taste anyway, it had the severed heads of religious leaders like jesus and muhamad and such, ewww disgusting. And the fat lady didnt even get a chance to sing.
28. No, you don’t need anyone to call in for that. At least with respect to any denigration of their Prophet.
1. Including Spain as Bin Laden would like? Or just the ones the US was invited into like Saudi Arabia? Or just the ones that have terrorist training camps? Try to be more specific.
2. Something like the 9/11attackers and suicide bombers who think they will be later forgiven in heaven by all the innocents they kill?
3. Maybe I could go with Salman Rushdie.
RBG
This whole story is designed to enrage idiots on all sides. Only a few here are smart enough to see that. I guess a 4 point intelligence bump isn’t enough for some guys.
Muslims believe that Muhammad is in heaven with God. If you will take a moment and open your Christian bible to the part about the 10 commandments, you’ll see that it is God who is intolerable of displaying any images of Muhammad, or anything else in heaven, below the earth, or that which dwelleth in the sea. Outraged Muslims are only following God’s will. Christians, with their pervasive idolatry, tend to overlook that verse. Then again they also overlook the verses in which God demands that people caught picking up sticks on the Sabbath, be tortured to death. So they do with many of the other seemingly barbaric verses found in their copy of the Word.
It’s always the other guy who is being unreasonable. Sheese!
1. Get the hell out of Muslim lands,
Could you define that?