Dress code: Woman in niqab ‘is asked to leave the Opera’

Reports from Paris say that a couple from the Gulf were asked to leave the Bastille in the middle of a performance of La Traviata after the woman refused to remove her face covering.

The pair were seated in the most expensive seats, costing 231 Euros each.

Jean-Philippe Thiellay, deputy director of the Opéra, said the woman had entered the auditorium unnoticed. He was obliged to take action because a French law, enacted in 2011, forbids full facial covering in public. Offenders can be fined 150 Euros and forced to attend a course in citizenship.

Thiellay said he sent an official to speak to the lady, whose husband spoke on her behalf. The husband agreed that they should leave and did not ask for a refund.

He was prompted to act, apparently, after a complaint from chorus members who did not like performing for a faceless audience member.

You wonder how they get through Ballo in Maschera.