Hanover State Opera ends contract with ballet director over dog faeces incident

Marco Goecke smeared excrement on the face of Wiebke Huester after she posted a critical review

The Hanover State Opera has announced that it is ending its contract with the ballet director Marco Goecke after he smeared dog faeces on the face of a newspaper critic whose reviews he had taken exception to.

Goecke was suspended from his post as ballet chief this week after the attack on the dance critic Wiebke Huester of the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Saturday. The confrontation took place during the interval of a premiere at the opera house.