Strong police presence at the opening of Deutsche Oper's Idomeneo in Berlin... Photograph: Gero Breloer/EPA
Opera grabbed more than its usual share of December's news, largely thanks to the misbehaviour of its singers and their fans. But however great its temporary elevation in the media, one would hardly have expected the glut of headlines around the world this week along the lines of "Mozart opera passes without incident".
A little backstory: the production in question, Hans Neuenfels's staging of Mozart's 1781 opera seria Idomeneo first opened to a mixed response some three years ago. In September the Deutsche Oper management cancelled the opera's planned November revival after receiving some reportedly vague threats of bombs and violence and an assessment from the interior ministry that staging the production would amount to an "incalculable security risk" (make of that what you will).
The threats, as will be remembered, turned on an aspect of the production that involved an unmasking of the gods, and the rolling of the severed heads of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed and Poseidon across the stage, the latter divinity being the only one with any stake in the proceedings as intended by Mozart and his librettist Varesco (which is not to say that the Neuenfels isn't an appropriate or thoughtful response to what is, superficially, a fairly forced dramatic conclusion in the original).
The decision to pull the production elicited a good deal of excitement (and excited fence-sitting) from the world's media, most of which died down when, following criticism of "self-censorship out of fear" from the Angela Merkel, among others, Deutsche Oper reneged and scheduled a limited run for later in the year. And so this week, Berlin operagoers were able, having passed through airport-style security, to see, hear, boo and applaud for themselves. No explosions, no Neuenfels (whose opinion of the revival is reportedly that "it's crap"), nor even any unscheduled exits stage left; simply opera, getting on with business as usual.
And given that opera's business as usual happens to be one of considered, creative engagement with society and its values, it's a damned good thing too.
