Austrian monastery cuts erotic scenes from opera performance
dpa
VIENNA (dpa)- German opera director Peter P Pachl was prevented from showing highly-charged sexual material during a performance of one his productions at the Klosterneuburg Monastery in Austria, local media reported.
A tamer of version of Pachl's production of "The Queen of Sheba" was performed at the 12th-century Augustinian monastery on Thursday without any "pornographic, sexualized and erotic scenes," Klosterneuburg spokesman Walter Hanzmann told the Austrian news agency APA on Friday.
At a dress rehearsal on Wednesday evening a performer had walked around the church altar wearing a string bikini with large dildo strapped to her, APA reported.
Pachl, who once temporarily led the Berlin Symphony Orchestra in the German capital, said he was forced to cut the sexually explicit material otherwise the monastery would have cancelled the two performances on Thursday and Friday.
Pachl said there had been no complaints from monastery officials during early rehearsals of the opera, but only after the first public preview.
Monastery officials had "not been invited" to the rehearsals, the spokesman commented.
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