Despite one Age rating from 18 years and bold warnings leaves a current revealing and bloody Opernperformance in Stuttgart leaves its mark on more sensitive visitors.
Around the first two Performances of Florentina Holzinger’s “Sancta” The visitor service took care of a total of 18 people some complained of nausea said the spokesman for the State Opera, Sebastian Ebling. In three cases a doctor had to be called in. The “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” and the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” had previously reported.
Holzinger has been causing a stir in the theater world for years with her works, in which she radically and freely stages female bodies, incorporates painful stunts and doesn’t shy away from trash. In “Sancta” she brings lesbian love scenes to the stage with provocative clarityridicules Christian rituals and denounces the sexual oppression of women.
Opera house expressly warns against blood and violence
The State Opera also informs that spirituality, sexuality, but also criticism of religion and a critical view of religious and social violence are the focus of the performances. “Exploring boundaries and crossing them with pleasure has always been a central task of art,” the opera quotes its artistic director Viktor Schoner as saying.
The house also expressly warns on its homepage that The performance of the scandal-ridden Austrian performance artist shows explicit sexual acts as well as depictions and descriptions of sexual violence. Real blood as well as fake blood, piercings and a wound can also be seen. Strobe effects, volume and incense would also be used.
The opera recommends the performance to audiences who are “daringly looking for new theater experiences,” as it says on its homepage. However, in addition to the use of some theatrical means, performance art is “not fake, but real,” said Ebling. In the case of the sexual violence shown in “Sancta”, the house explicitly warns against retraumatization.
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According to opera spokesman Ebling Nothing should be changed with regard to the five “Sancta” evenings that are still planned. Nausea and fainting also occur again and again, he said. The premiere was acclaimed. He is convinced that there were essentially people in the rows of visitors “who knew what they were getting into.”
