Berlin opera drops Mohamed's severed head

A production of a Mozart opera in which the severed head of the Muslim prophet Mohamed is shown on stage was dropped by one of Berlin's main opera houses yesterday, because of fears that the work might provoke a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists.

The decision by Berlin's Deutsche Oper to cancel Idomeneo provoked uproar among German politicians and directors, who said the opera house had allowed itself to be intimidated.

"This is mad," said Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany's Interior Minister. Bernd Neumann, the Culture Minister, added: "If fears about possible protests result in self-censorship, then the democratic principles of free speech are in danger."

Kirstin Harms, Deutsche Oper's manager, said the company had received information from Berlin police which suggested that the work could provoke what she described as an "incalculable security risk".

Berlin police yesterday denied that they had received any concrete threat of an attack, but said they had warned that "disruptions could not be ruled out".

In the opera house's production of the Mozart work that was first shown in 1871, the Cretan king, Idomeneo, holds up the severed heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddah and Mohamed. When the production by the director Hans Neuenfels was first shown in 2003, several religious groups said that they were offended.