The Royal Opera House’s boss said he faced online abuse after staging a version of William Tell with a graphic rape scene.
Kasper Holten, who is leaving to return to his native Denmark in March, said he did not expect the reaction to the show which was jeered by audience members at Covent Garden.
The director of opera at Covent Garden said there “some pretty abusive things being said on Twitter about me liking to see women raped”.
He said he did not think the scene was “offensive”, but told the Times: “I wish in hindsight that I had understood the reaction that it [the rape scene] would provoke because I think it lopsided the whole discussion.”
“In showing a woman abused it was trying to show what society William Tell lived in, but had I known how offensive some people would find it, I would have done some tweaks in advance.”
