After rubbing dog feces on a critic's face, an award-winning German ballet director was fired.
According to reports, Marco Goecke was enraged by Wiebke Hüster's review of one of his performances.
He is accused of confronting Ms. Hüster and smearing dog feces on her face during a commercial break for another show.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Ms. Hüster's employer, reported that police were looking into the incident.
Ms. Hüster compared the initial review of Mr. Goecke's performance of In The Dutch Mountains to being "alternately driven mad and killed by boredom.".
During the argument, Mr. Goecke stated that he thought the negative review had cost the Hanover Opera House subscriptions and threatened to expel her from the venue.
Hanover State Opera announced that Mr. Goecke had been suspended with immediate effect for violating its conduct policies with his "impulsive reaction.".
According to them, Mr. Goecke "extremely unnerved the audience, the house staff, and the general public and thereby seriously harmed the State Ballet.".
Ms. Hüster's "personal integrity was blatantly violated," the statement added.
The incident was referred to as "an attempt to intimidate our free, critical view of the art" by the FAZ paper, for which Ms. Hüster worked.
Mr. Goecke won the 2022 German Dance Prize and has been the director of the Hanover Theatre since 2019.
