Saddam Spectacle

An Italian OPERA DIRECTOR’S life has been threatened for portraying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on stage as Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar--a figure to whom Hussein has frequently compared himself. The Alliance of Iraqi Patriots had threatened to kill Gian-Carlo del Monaco for turning Verdi’s opera “Nabucco” into an anti-Saddam spectacle. The group’s letter to Del Monaco stated: “Nobody laughs without punishment at the great and glorious leader of the Iraqi people.”