Wiebke Hüster did not like Goecke's set "In The Dutch Mountains".
She even loathed it.
In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Hüster wrote that "You will alternately go mad and be killed by boredom while watching" about the work.
According to Goecke, the stinging criticism caused the opera to lose subscribers and he therefore threatened to remove Hüster from the Opera.
But during the premiere of Goecke's latest set, "Glaube – Liebe – Hoffnung", she was still in the audience.
During a break, a furious Goecke, with his dachshund in tow, approached the journalist, expressed anger at her review and shoved a bag of dog poo in her face.
The incident has been reported to the police and has made many headlines in Germany.
The German Association of Journalists believes that the move is an attack on press freedom, and Culture Minister Falko Mohrs calls it "completely unacceptable".
Goecke himself does not distance himself from what happened.
He says that he first tried to talk to Hüster, but that her attitude made the cup run over.
- She has also thrown crap at me for several years, he says to the German public service company NDR.
The State Opera has suspended Goecke until further notice.