Opera on Bush and Blair, censored in Italy, now in London

From British weekly paper The Observer:

London takes on opera that shocked Italy

La Scala backed off, but ENO risks staging a satire that pokes fun at world statesmen

Vanessa Thorpe, arts and media correspondent

Sunday April 22, 2007

A controversial production which was cancelled by Italy’s leading opera house because of its vicious lampooning of world leaders is to be staged in London.

The new production of Candide – which features attacks on Tony Blair, George Bush and Silvio Berlusconi – is being brought to London by the embattled English National Opera, as the company attempts to demonstrate its cultural cutting edge.

The British Prime Minister and the American President are represented by actors in cartoon-style masks, cavorting drunkenly in their underpants at a beach party.

See also here.