‘Sancta’ can boast of not leaving anyone indifferent during its controversial ‘performance’ at the Stuttgart State Opera. This readaptation of the work Paul Hindemith, written in 1921, shows liters of blood and sexual and explicit violence that has caused anxiety, vomiting and nausea in 18 people in Germany.
Hindemith’s work cannot be separated from the word polemic. Already caused a lot of commotion in its time because it tells the story of the nun Susanawho leaves behind his repressed desires and stars in a active sexual life in which self-harm, blood, sexual violence and even cannibalism appear. Although in the 1920s she mainly offended the Catholic Church because of the lesbian relationships she portrayed, today it is the explicit images, where the actress can be seen cutting her skin to cook it later, that has generated much repulsion to the spectators.
Paul Hindemith’s striking text remains in the background after the controversial staging by choreographer Florentina Holzinger in which the crucified bodies, blood and explicit sex are common in a 3-hour work without breaks that, in addition to the 15 attended for vomiting or anxiety, made three people lost consciousness and had to be treated by emergency doctors.
The Stuttgart State Opera, despite criticism, defends Florentina Holzinger and refuses to withdraw a work which has sold out tickets for the five performances planned between October and November. Its justification is that They warn of the opera’s content and that the audience “knows what they are getting into.”
The parody on the Church and the continuous attacks ecclesiastical members, including the Pope, are forgotten by viewers due to the sadistic proposal of ‘Sancta Susanna’. The choreographer defends that it is the first real criticism of Catholicism because the work denounces the violence exercised by the Church.
