In a controversial stunt, director Hans Neuenfels had the title hero emerge on the stage with a sack to produce out of it, one by one, the severed heads of Buddha, Poseidon, Jesus Christ and Mohammed. After proudly displaying them to the audience, the king neatly arranges the heads on chairs. In fact, there was nothing in the music or the libretto to prompt the hair-raising scene.
The controversy sets Berliners and us Muscovites alike thinking hard about the paradoxical times we live in.
There are two ways to approach the problem.
First, one can shrug off religious feelings that might be hurt. Thus, many pious Russians protested against Madonna posing on a huge crucifix in her latest program - but the star performed in Moscow, all right.
Second, such feelings are to be considered in the most meticulous way. If we accept the option, the world ought to revise its entire cultural heritage from the point of political correctness. Take Alexander Pushkin's comic folksy tale in verse about a priest and his hired hand Balda, in which the harmless village priest appears tougher than the Devil. Another literary giant comes up - Shakespeare with his The Merchant of Venice, in which the figure of Shylock may insult a Jew. Or take Dickens' Oliver Twist, with its no less abhorrent Fagin. Now comes the Russian television's daily puppet show Goodnight, Kids! with a piglet for one of its central characters to hurt the delicate Muslim feeling. The list can go on ad infinitum.
While on a recent trip to China, I was amazed to learn that a teapot is never to point its nose at a guest because of its shocking phallic association. The trip enriched me with yet another mental taboo, which became an obsession. I scrutinize teapots whenever I find myself at tea table, whether at home, in a restaurant or while visiting friends - and I have already been insulted on several occasions.
Life becomes sheer hell when we check every trifle against the huge moral yardstick.
Leo Tolstoy offered a good way out of the predicament.
Once, when he was walking with a visiting American journalist along the alleys of Yasnaya Polyana, his country estate, a mosquito landed on the great thinker's brow to find its death by his hand the same instant.
"How could you, sir! You of all people, with your non-violence theory!" cried the guest, its ardent adept.
Red as a lobster, Tolstoy hurried away into the darkest nook of his park. He never appeared at dinner, neither at breakfast the next day. The entire exasperated household glared at the tactless visitor. The poor American was packing his things to beat a hasty retreat when the host appeared in his room, triumphantly declaring:
"Never make mountains out of molehills!"
It had taken him a day and a night to pass his verdict on mosquito terrorism, which works fine in the 21st century context, too. What else can we do unless we follow the wise advice? Are we to walk about in mosquito nets? Or in yashmaks, for precaution's sake? Or have ourselves caged - the most radical way to rule out whatever misunderstanding?
