Florentina Holzinger: This is the woman behind the opera scandal

Choreographer, performance artist and provocateur: Florentina Holzinger from Vienna

© arguseye / Imago Images

Florentina Holzinger shocks the sensitive audience in Stuttgart: Who would have thought that blood, naked nuns and provocative kitsch could cause such a stir?

The German opera world hasn’t seen such headlines for a long time: “Nausea in the audience”, “Opera ensures emergency medical services”, “Sex scenes shock opera audience” and: “Been at the opera, vomited”. What happened?

The Austrian artist Florentina Holzinger, 38, has been successful for years with performance art whose essence is reminiscent of the provocation theater of the Viennese Actionists 50 years ago. The principle of the art patriarchs Hermann Nitsch, Otto Mühl or Günther Brus, just more queer, more feminist and much more professional in their dance performance. “Exploring boundaries and crossing them with pleasure has always been a central task of art,” says Stuttgart artistic director Viktor Schoner. He remains unaware of what new insights will emerge from this in the 21st century.

Florentina Holzinger was born in Vienna in 1986 and is considered one of the most important artists in her genre; the British “Guardian” named her “Europe’s hottest director”. There is a reason for this: Even if the performing arts see themselves as enlightening and socially progressive, they are often far behind in their own structures. The cult of male genius in the theater and opera industry was recognized far too late as a structural problem; the various me-too affairs in this industry in recent years are evidence of this.

Emancipation of all Gretchens, nymphs and mermaids

Holzinger, on the other hand, takes a crowbar approach. She frees the Gretchens and Ophelias of theater history from their passive roles, takes the muses, nymphs and mermaids out of their function of merely luring and pleasing. She is the heroic avenger of everyone who loves and loves everyone. Their means of freeing the female body from all assigned and imposed grace are sometimes drastic and brutal. There is live tattooing and piercing and even real damage. Sword swallowers, pole dancers, Japanese bondage artists and women hanging by their hair braided into ponytails are among their cutlery. In “A Divine Comedy” from 2021 at the Berlin Volksbühne, an actress performed a spectacular orgasm while a painting with blood and fresh excrement was splashed together.

Florentina Holzinger versus the Vatican

In a nod to the Christian passion story, Holzinger had a piece of skin cut from the body of an actress at the Vienna Festival three months ago, blood flowed and the orchestra master fainted. The bloody operation on the open stage was projected on screens on the side of the stage, and the performance had to be interrupted at this premiere of her first opera “Sancta”.

Already at those performances in Vienna, the violent stage spectacle with some explicit sex scenes was received with mixed feelings; viewers wondered to what extent the reactions provoked could be part of the overall production.

While theological laypeople, including many women, are currently discussing with Pope Francis I in the Vatican how the church could become more contemporary and diverse, Holzinger is resorting to old images of Catholicism. A naked woman swings as a human clapper in a large church bell. Naked nuns masturbate. The possibility of a celibate existence as a religious in the sense of female self-determination is not up for debate.

Artistic freedom does not require good taste

What Holzinger is performing is clearly covered by artistic freedom; there should be no debate about it. Wiener Festwochen, Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater and Stuttgarter Staatsoper, where “Sancta” has been performed so far, have fulfilled their duty of care towards the audience and warned in advance about the impending, possibly psychologically challenging impositions.

As ordered, high-ranking clergy in Austria criticized the “disrespectful satire of the Holy Mass” (Innsbruck’s Bishop Hermann Glettler) and complained that “religious feelings and beliefs of believers were being seriously hurt” (Salzburg’s Archbishop Franz Lackner). At the performances in Schwerin, there were no protests of this kind due to the lack of Catholic personalities; the naked women satisfying each other on a neon cross excited the audience significantly less – with the exception of one visitor who told an NDR reporter that he had “The necessary depth” was missing.

Viennese actionism in queer feminist

While the performance artist Hermann Nitsch, who died in 2022 and who combined crucifixion scenes with sexual depictions in his 1969 performance “Maria Conception”, was still faced with a broad front of Catholic excitement and even had to leave the country at times, Holzinger’s provocation spectacle seems like a pale farce of that. Even if conservatism and right-wing politics are on the rise again, they still lack the right addressee.

Florentina Holzinger’s ancestors: The Viennese performance artist Hermann Nitsch provoked people with similar motifs in the 1960s

© Viennareport / Imago Images

Rather, the question arises as to whether Holzinger, with her brutal aesthetics, is perhaps using the very means that she wants to combat. Parts of the Stuttgart ensemble are said to feel taken by surprise and abused. Nobody asked them if they would like to be part of this performance with their artistic contribution. In this respect, Holzinger is part and even at the top of a hierarchy that she claims to be fighting. Patriarchal structures do not get better by being exercised by women.

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