Don't get me wrong. I am certain that the production, which premiered in 2003, is a horror. In Mozart's version, the opera, set on Crete in the aftermath of the Trojan War, is a play about sacrifice and reconciliation. The opera ends with King Idomeneo issuing a "last command. I announce peace," before ceding power to his son.
Mr. Neuenfels's version is Modern German--i.e., gratuitously offensive. It is more Neuenfels than Mozart. Instead of appearing as the harbinger of peace, Idomeneo ends the opera parading the severed heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and the Prophet Muhammad. How do you spell "anachronistic balderdash"?
Poor Mozart. Mr. Neuenfels is one of those directors more interested in nurturing his own pathologies than in offering a faithful presentation of the geniuses with whose work he has been entrusted.
Somehow I don't expect that Mozart wrote into his opera the scene where King Idomeneo presents the lopped-off heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha and the Prophet Mohammed and displays them on four chairs.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/09/25/060925192943.tqohhg8j.html
The opera was re-written specifically to stir up trouble ... You may wish to consider if this production might have been written by fanatical Muslims in order to stir up trouble. ( That IS what they are after, you recall )