The opening night of William Tell at the Royal Opera House has been marked by boos over a rape scene with nudity.
The Opera House issued a statement after the performance of Guillaume Tell apologising for any distress caused. Director of opera Kasper Holten said: "The production intends to make it an uncomfortable scene, just as there are several upsetting and violent scenes in Rossini's score.
"We are sorry if some people have found this distressing."
Holten said the scene "puts the spotlight on the brutal reality of women being abused during war time, and sexual violence being a tragic fact of war."
Rossini's opera of the Swiss patriot, William Tell, who shoots an arrow that splits an apple atop his son's head, has been directed by Damiano Michieletto and stars Canadian baritone Gerald Finley as Tell and American tenor John Osborn.
Osborn told Reuters after the performance that the scene "maybe it went a little longer than it should have".
"But it happened and I think it's an element you can use to show just how horrible these people were that were occupying this town," he said.
"If you don't feel the brutality, the suffering these people have had to face, if you want to hide it, it becomes soft, it becomes for children."
The Stage gave the production one star. George Hall called it a "dire evening" in which the "gratuitous gang-rape" scene provoked "the noisiest and most sustained booing I can ever recall during any performance at this address".
"Intellectually poverty-stricken, emotionally crass and with indifferent stagecraft, the result is nowhere near the standard an international company should be aiming at", he said.
Michael Arditti, the Sunday Express theatre critic said the production represented a "new nadir" for the opera house and "heads should roll".
Eaves, which is a charity that supports women who have experienced violence, said "sexual violence in conflict can be dealt with in sensitive ways - not gratuitous entertainment - bad call."
The opera house put up an article on its website not mentioning the scene, but asking the audience what they thought of the production.
Tim Moorey responded, calling the production "a disappointment from beginning to end. No wonder it received calls of 'rubbish' and lots of boos during the performance and at the end.
"I should especially single our the gratuitous rape scene which was totally unnecessary and received almost universal disapproval and much booing."
But some were upset at the booing in the audience. Janice Evans wrote she was "in shock at this level of intolerance exhibited in the ROH".
"I felt abused by their aggression and ashamed of their disrespect for the performers."
Mark Valencia writing for What's on Stage pointed out that first night booing is "a fast-growing problem at Covent Garden" that doesn't happen at other opera houses.
"It's become standard practice for the director of practically every new production to be jeered by practised factions in the audience who object to ideas that go beyond the literal reading of an opera," he said.
But at last night's first night "the perpetrators did something unheard of: they booed during the music. And they did so loudly and long."
They also booed at the end of the performance when the production team came on stage for the curtain call.
