Sports Calendar

The King of Crete has been saved from drowning in a storm by the intervention of Poseidon, God of the Sea, and must repay his debt by sacrificing his son.

The King rails against the injustice in an epilogue, and stumbles on stage with a bag containing the heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad. The head of Muhammad has become the symbol of this potential conflict with Islamic sensibilities, the operatic equivalent of the Danish cartoons.

It has already been stolen once and had to be remade — by a theatre props artist whose identity has been kept hidden.

In the final critical moment the King of Crete, blood-drenched, calls out to the audience: “The Gods are dead!” However, the tenor Raúl Giménez, who appeared to be wearing a bulletproof vest, last night substituted the words for a cackling laugh.

ART UNDER ATTACK

The Romans in Britain,
Howard Brenton,
1980

Mary Whitehouse withdrew a private prosecution over scenes of anal rape and had to pay £14,000 costs

Platform,
Michel Houellebecq,
2002

Author accused of inciting racial hatred for calling Islam stupid while promoting novel

Behzti,
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti,
2003

Sikh protests led to the cancellation of play, which included rape and brutality in a Sikh temple

The Passion of the Christ,
directed Mel Gibson,
2004

Jews criticised the film as anti-Semitic. Gibson said it accurately portrayed Gospels

Source: agencies

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