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.