Flit

I guess it's official now

We've started rolling back the Enlightenment. Pity: it's a beautiful opera.

NOTE: To be fair, I haven't seen this 2003 German remake the fuss is about, or even the opera itself: I've only ever listened to it on recording and radio (let's just say Texaco's Saturday Afternoon at the Opera broadcast was a big weekend afternoon favourite in our house when I was young). The original was hardly a condemnation of religion, and any Muslim complaints seem entirely to do with tacked-on props and stage direction.

Peter Sellars also did a controversial Ideomeneo in England in 2003, with the Cretan King costumed as a Republican and Ilia as an Iraqi detainee. Maybe Berlin should try staging that one instead.