Cambridge University cancels Handel oratorio ‘due to Gaza situation’
NewsCambridge University’s opera society, which is run by students, has cancelled its production of Handel’s oratorio Saul, in which the Jewish shepherd David is seen killing the Philistine Goliath.
CUOS president Beth Norman said: ‘It is with heavy heart that CUOS are announcing that due to the current sensitive political situation and unfortunate escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel, we have decided that the production of Handel’s Saul will not go ahead.’ The show’s director Max Mason said: ‘Given the parallels of this conflict, the production team made the difficult decision to cancel Saul. We came to the unanimous conclusion that our production was not in the place to fully confront the issues that have striking synchronicity with the ongoing Middle East conflict.’
The cancellation was broken in this morning’s Daily Telegraph.
How about canceling or at least suspending for a while the whole Old Testament?
That will happen soon…Inshallah
Actually, the UK has cancelled the New Testament as well.
Preaching the Gospel will get you arrested by the LGBT-State-Religion-Police.
Very 1984, laughable, and tragic.
Cambridge has gone Monty Python in wokeness.
Oh, when did that happen? I haven’t read any reports of churches being closed down by the stater for preaching the NT.
Silly bugger-and not helpful in the circumstances.
Me? On what grounds do you say that?
Good idea. Lest somebody hears that Jews had something to do with the Holly Land long before Islam.
Evcery human being born into the world has the same human rights. They do not depend on where your ancestors lived.
That’s exactly the kind of egregious imbecility that demonstrates that this was the correct decision.
If you are referring to my comment, would you care to try to say why you think it embodies “egregious imbecility”? And what is the decision you refer to as correct?
As a former member of the Opera Society in the early 1980s I suppose I should be grateful that Die Entfuhrung aus dam Serail, The Rape of Lucretia and the Fairy Queen survived the censors and were produced (to great acclaim).
Shame. At least the Dead March would’ve been appropriate!
I support Händel.
Que boludez jajaja que sigue después el oro del rin?
Die Walküre?
Good God. What next?
Cowards.
WTF insanity. Whoever sees any connection between reality to the biblical story of David and Goliath needs their brains to be examined.
The story of a little guy defending himself against a much larger opponent sent to annihilate him…
Therein lies the problem. A Jew defeating an enemy.
Yes, most people don’t know what’s in the bible.
Danius thinks that Handel’s Saul is about the story of David and Goliath? I would have expected better of a commenter on a classical news site.
Intelligence and courage are the most precious recourses on this planet. It’s just so sad that there is so little of each, and almost never given to those who need it.
No one/thing is impervious to cancel culture…
Ridiculous. Typical spineless Cambridge snowflakes.
This very blog, less than a week ago, suggested that a pile of bodies in a Götterdämmerung production at La Monnaie was inappropriate and insensitive in the current context.
https://slippedisc.com/2023/10/massacre-at-the-opera-or-just-another-wagner-ring/
But it’s easy to blame “Cambridge snowflakes”; there’s a whole media ecosystem that revolves entirely about manufacturing outrage over a few students, in Britain even more than elsewhere.
What a load of virtue-signalling b******s!
Hmmm. And the White House cancelled a rock band called the B-52s, who were meant to entertain at the State dinner for P.M. Albinese of Australia. I’m not sure anyone who understands the political implications of music (!) is involved here. But some very strange interpretations appear to be going on.
If you report something, give the complete story. The B52s will be replaced by the Army and Air Force’s “Strolling Strings” and the “President’s Own” US Marine Band.
In the light of the events, this seems appropriate.
How stupid.
We who live in Idaho will be disappointed that Private Idaho won’t be on the White House program.
What a bunch of spineless wimps. Of course, it is “that other school” as it’s called.
I think you mean “the other place.”
Meanwhile, the NY Philharmonic is scheduled to present Israel in Egypt today and tomorrow.
I will be attending tomorrow’s concert.
Next up, Judas Maccabaeus during the upcoming Hannukah season.
No ‘Saul’, but you can take comfort in Johann Kuhnau’s Biblische Sonate No. 1 “Der Streit zwischen David und Goliath”, played by the great Gustav Leonhardt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OkH1mOeJVU
Utterly pathetic. This is the extreme of cancel culture and extremely damaging to the arts in general, not only to music. When will people understand that Handel’s Saul is not a documentary?
Absurd.
So now they absolutely have to ban performances of Haydn’s Creation. For those who don’t know, it starts with God creatng the world and ends with bringing the first two (Jewish) humans into it. Just like in the Bible…
Absolute nonsense, the Bible Belt in America will insist Haydn’s Creation is on the School Curriculum. Just don’t compose an opera about Darwin.
Adam and Eve… the first obvious logical fallacy in that book of tales freely invented by man: If in the beginning there were only Adam & Eve, then all humanity descended from them and is therefor through matrilinear heritage Jewish.
There are no „chosen people“, unless there are ONLY chosen people.
Religion… it‘s kind of cute, if it weren‘t so delusional, silly and horrific in what it brainwashes people into. Haters and murderers.
Adam was not Jewish, but the progenitor of humanity in general. The Jewish people trace their ancestry to Jacob (aka Israel), and more specifically to his sons. Jacob was 21 generations after Adam.
There may be fallacies in the Bible, but that ain’t one of them.
Yes. But if one claims an exclusive right to a certain piece of land through a matrilinear DNA connection over about 100 generations in diaspora, then the matrilinear DNA connection doesn’t stop upstream at Jacob, but goes all the way those 21 generations further. You can’t have it both ways, use the bloodline when it suits you, and draw a stop line when it doesn’t.
I mean we all know how arbitrary all these manmade constructs are, who is in, and who is out. We are all one humanity.
Tamino, the Bible is a story. There was no real Adam and Eve but real historical evidence does show that the Jews lived in a kingdom incorporating much of modern day Israel, the West Bank and Jordan before the rise of the Roman Empire.
The first Jew was Abraham. Adad & Eve were not. As for the Jews being “the chosen people” – most Jews would rather be left alone…
How on God’s green earth were the first two human beings “Jewish”?
It’s a “creation myth.”
Ridiculous. What had Händel to do with Gaza? Might as well cancel all Wagner given his notorious anti-semitism.
“Handel’s oratorio Saul, in which the Jewish shepherd David is seen killing the Philistine Goliath.” No, the action only starts with David’s triumphant return with the head of Goliath (“the monstrous atheist”) of Gath (Gaza) in his hand. But the whole story has as its background continuous war between Israelites and Philistines. Of all the Handel oratorios, it is the closest to current events, and therefore it is prudent and wise not to perform it at the present time.
Gath is actually to the north of Gazza – inside Israeli international Borders. And it was also a desired target for Hamas einsatzgruppe. Luckily they did not reach it, but they keep firing rockets at it. Perhaps they dislike Goliath as well. After all he was an infidel and by Hamas covenant, ought to be exterminated,.
You are right. Gaza was a coastal city, Goliath was from Gath, inland. Both were among the five Philistine cities in the time of Saul. My point about Israeli/Philistine conflict stands.
Just when we need David’s (or Handel’s) music to soothe our troubled souls here come the Cambridge Philistines to shut it down.
Weren’t the Philistine cities in the area that is now Gaza?
Not that that is an acceptable argument pro or con the cancellation.
The precise location of some Philistine cities is still disputed. Gazza was certainly one of them. So are Ashkelon & Ashdod in southern Israel. Gath is probably near Kibutz Kfar Menachem – and Ekron not far away near Kibutz Revadim. All these places had been constantly under fire since October 7th.
As an atheist, I find Haydn’s Creation highly offensive.
Frankly, my dear, we don’t give a damn.
Proof that Americans don’t understand irony?
Did 26 people really take that seriously?
“Given the parallels of this conflict…”
Apparently they didn’t notice the parallel between Ukraine’s love affair with the EU and subsequent Russian invasion when they performed Acis and Galatea in 2022.
Santo cielo, un altra cialtroneria di ignoranti, Dio ce ne liberi!
Even the historical existence of Jews has become offensive. That’s a prelude to Genocide.
“Even the historical existence of Jews has become offensive.”
Could you explain what that means? On the face of it, it seems to mean that some people are offended that some Jews lived a long time ago. You don’t only mean that, surely. It seems a bonkers thing to be offended by.
Great question. I was wondering the same. Unfortunately, this person Yaron never responds to thoughtful questions. He only pontificates, very loudly and very aggressively. He is doing more damage than good to those who share his view. He is a poor advocate.
Just edit the program to say this is all happening on another planet, in the Star Wars universe.
Robert, it could be streamed on Disney+…
WTF? All the more reason to go ahead with it. This is anti-Semitism. These people would have cheered Kristallnacht in 1938. Downvote me if you want, its true.
Who are the philistines now?…
A few years ago, for a while, the Palestinians were peddling the false– actually, ridiculous– notion that they were the direct descendants of the Philistines. Etymologically they may be correct, but in no other sense is this true. I haven’t heard this canard lately but that doesn’t mean that it is not still being foisted nor that it lingers in some dusty corners of some college campuses. Phony stories sometimes take a long time to die.
Who would be offended by a performance of Handel’s Saul anyway? It’s not as if the Zionists or even Israelis are Christians. They saw to it that the Redeemer was done away with. It happened a long time ago though; I think they’ve forgotten this fact. Of course, Handel’s Judas Maccabeus is hardly ever performed in Scotland. Come to think of it, I’m surprised Cumberland sausages aren’t banned in Scotland.
Nor Zionists, nor Israelies “waw to it that the Redeemer was done away with”.
Even if one takes the scriptures seriously as fact, the ones who did were certain specific Jews.
If one is to apply the same standard today, all Palestinians ought to carry the blame for the atrocities commited in their name by a mear 40,000 Hamas gangsters.
Yes; this practice of regarding today’s people who meet a certain description as to blame for bad things done by people in the past (or even people in the present) who met the same description is deeply irrational and unjust. But versions of it go on all the time.
“They saw to it that the Redeemer was done away with. ”
At most, only relatively few were engaged in this and they are now all dead.
Como di Caccia, “the Redeemer” was a Jewish man in a Jewish Kingdom taken over by the Roman Empire and managed as a Protectorate. Saying that “Jews killed Jesus” is as silly as saying “Americans killed Abraham Lincoln.”
Such an idiocy
Isn’t this just a bad case of overestimating one’s worldly importance. That’s always been student territory.
The ancient Philistine was located between modern Tel-Aviv and ancient Gaza city, I. e. mostly Israeli territory under Hamas missiles today. The Philistine people had nothing to do with modern Arabs, their genetic tests proved it undoubtedly.
When a fruit fly shares 50% of commonality in the DNA with a human, it’s strange to claim 0.001% differences in the DNA would stipulate a racist “A had nothing to do with B” comment.
Where do all these racist brain constructs come from?
If your glass is 99.99% full, is it then “nothing like a full glass”?
Humans are weird.
Ha ha! Although the Palis would probably like it to be true, they have no connections to the Philistines. Those people have long since disappeared as a people.
Now if it had been Samson, I might have seen the point…
Canceling stuff feels good. Makes you feel important and meaningful.
I guess Handel’s Samson oratorio and Saint-Saens’s Samson and Delilah are off the program as well…
The humanitarian situation is a distressing catastrophe, but that is no justification for cancelling a Handel opera. Uncomfortable as some of the parallels may be (and by the way, there are several Christmas carols that invite similarly uncomfortable parallels… will those be cut from the various Cambridge College carol services?!?), such cancellation is a cowardly act that does not behove a distinguished society within the world’s greatest university. Surely, opera is very much an art form in which one can “confront the issues” to some extent (insofar as artists and/or audiences opt to interpret a production in that manner) , and the possibility of a “striking synchronicity” would make for a refreshing and welcome change from the usual allegations of “silly pageantry that is irrelevant in our modern age”.
And out of curiosity, I would quite like to know what they mean by “unanimous conclusion” and “the production team”… does this include every singer, orchestral player, répétitur, backstage assistant, &c. involved in the production, or is it merely an executive committee that is easily swayed by one or two political animals? If student committees for music societies at Cambridge are anything like they were in my day, then I imagine that most of the committee members are supremely capable organisers who are not at all into politics, but rather were co-opted into a committee role uncontested, and who are therefore disinclined to go against the demands of the occasional political animal.
Finally, I think it is worth remarking that most Cambridge undergraduates are there for only three years, and many postgraduates for as little as one year. Opera is very difficult and expensive to mount, and there will almost certainly have been stiff competition for the principal roles. In other words, many of the students involved might not get another chance to perform in an opera, all because Beth Norman and Max Mason feel uncomfortable with some “parallels” to current events and want to project some selfish virtue-signalling that, far from being sensitive, is fundamentally insensitive to their colleagues and to the dignity of the art form. If those two cowards feel so strongly that they do not want to go ahead, the honourable course of action would have been to resign their posts, and thus give others the opportunity to lead the society and direct the production.
Let us hope that a rival operatic society in Cambridge can take over the production with the people who still want to go ahead (is the Cambridge Handel Opera Group still extant, I wonder?), and that the venue will hold the booking so that this can happen. Basically, they need to “do a Barenboim” and disregard Norman’s and Mason’s qualms (just as Barenboim has an excellent track record of going where other artists do not dare, such as breaking the “performing Wagner in Israel” taboo)!
Well,in those disturbed times,
I wish seek peace and pursue it
King david s psalm
Annie fischler
When I told my wife about this (Sat. 28) she wondered whether they would cancel Mass tomorrow. It has to do with a Jew being put to death by the Romans.