MOSCOW, March 7 (UPI) -- Russia's State Duma has ordered its cultural committee to investigate an opera by the Bolshoi Theater after a deputy described it as pornographic.
United Russia Deputy Sergei Neverov complained after seeing a television report on the opera, "The Children of Rosenthal," the Moscow Times reported.
"It is not decent for the stage of the Bolshoi Theater," Neverov said. His complaint involves a scene featuring a ranting pimp.
The opera, written by Vladimir Sorokin, tells the story of classical composers Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Wagner, Verdi and Mozart, cloned by a scientist in the Soviet Union. The composers fall on hard times after the Soviet breakup. The opera is to premier March 23.
The Bolshoi Theater angrily responded to what it referred to as attempted censorship. "Any theater decides what to put on by itself," Bolshoi General Director Anatoly Iksanov said during a phone interview.
