Russian Theater Director Fired for Offending Christians

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/world/europe/russian-theater-director-fired-for-offending-christians.html

MOSCOW — In the latest skirmish between the Russian Orthodox Church and the cultural elite, the culture minister on Sunday fired the director of a Siberian theater who included a controversial interpretation of the life of Jesus in the Richard Wagner opera “Tannhauser.”

The director, Boris Mezdrich, had failed to apologize and to take other steps to mitigate the outcry among the Orthodox faithful offended by various aspects of the production at the Novosibirsk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, said Vladimir Aristarkhov, the deputy minister of culture, according to Interfax.

President Vladimir V. Putin has made the protection of “traditional values,” including religious values, a pillar of his third term. In this case, Mr. Putin made his opinion known on March 23 when he awarded a state medal for “service to the homeland” to Aleksandr Novopashin, a priest in the Novosibirsk diocese who helped to lead the campaign against “Tannhauser.”

This case came three years after the storm over Pussy Riot, a punk protest band that performed an anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral. Several band members served up to two years in prison for “hooliganism.”

[GeorgeGist]

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