It was not exactly showbusiness as usual at the renowned Deutsche Oper in Germany last night as the nervous political classes filed through airport-style security checks so that they could watch the decapitated head of the Prophet Muhammad being held aloft in the name of art.

The great and the good were stripped of their opera glasses, and plainclothes police mingled with the audience.

Dog teams checked out the aisles and foil sheets were stuck to windows in order to make them shatterproof.

There were howls of protest in September when the opera management cancelled performances of Idomeneo for fear of sparking anger from Muslims around the world.

The West, it seemed, was capitulating before Islam, surrendering Mozart, one of the defining symbols of European culture, on his 250th birthday. “The decision to cancel was insane, laughable and unacceptable,” Wolfgang Schäuble, the Interior Minister, said. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, agreed. The Cabinet, which is dominated by Wagnerians, became fans of Mozart, an Austrian, overnight.

German politicians turned out in force at the performance and were determined to draw a line, if not between Islam and Christianity, then at least between artistic freedom and the paralysing fear of terrorism.

Mr Schäuble was there; Ms Merkel was not, but allowed Bernd Neumann, her Culture Minister, to leave a Cabinet session early so that he could get through the police cordons. Earlier, Mr Neumann had said: “If the mere fear of Islamic protest leads to self-censorship, then the democratic principle of the freedom of expression is directly threatened.” The leaders of the Green Party were in attendance, as was Klaus Wowereit, the Mayor of Berlin.

Newspapers sent their terrorism experts rather than music critics. They wore grim expressions, as if they were about to charge out of the trenches into the clash of civilisations.

Leaders of the Muslim community, having at first promised to attend, stayed away.

Ali Kizilkaya, the chairman of the German Islamic Council, said that the idea that Muslims should sit shoulder-to-shoulder with Christian politicians in a show of solidarity towards Mozart was “a bit too populist for my liking”.

Aiman Mazyek, the secretary-general of the Central Council of Muslims, agreed. “I go to the opera to relax, not in order to chuck religion, art and politics into one pot.”

The offending scene in the production, by Hans Neuenfels, arrives at the end.

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