Incalculably Safer

The Berlin opera house Deutsche Oper has engaged in a rather craven act of self-censorship, cancelling four performances of a production of Mozart's Idomeneo because security services warned of an "incalculable safety risk".

The opera as originally written is in part a pagan version of Judges XI, in which a father inadvertently offers the life of his child in return for having his wish granted. Perhaps because his child is a son and not a daughter, Idomeneo shows a little more intelligence than Jephthah the Gileadite; he orders the boy away and offers himself instead. Since the god is Neptune, saviour of ships, and not Jehovah, smiter of Ammon, everything turns out reasonably well.

In the Deutsche Oper production, the sea-god's clemency is repudiated in favour of a general twilight of the idols, with the severed heads of Neptune, Buddha, Christ and Muhammad appearing in the final act. Whatever its artistic merits or demerits, this is clearly not a case of singling Islam out for punishment in the manner of the famous Danish cartoons or, for that matter, that of Manuel II Palaiologos.

The Bavarian minister of the interior calls the affair "sad proof that Islamic extremist agitation is already affecting freedom of opinion in our society"; which seems a little odd given that Deutsche Oper's abjection appears to have resulted not from threats by Islamic extremists, but from the oracular forebodings of the security services.