Despite an age rating of 18 and over and bold warnings, the revealing and bloody opera performance leaves a lasting impression “Sancta” in Stuttgart leaves its mark on more sensitive visitors.
18 people get sick at “Sancta” in Stuttgart
Around the first two performances of Florentine Holzingers “Saint” the visitor service has improved overall 18 people were cared for, some of whom complained of nauseasaid State Opera spokesman Sebastian Ebling. In three cases a doctor had to be called in. The “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” and the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” had previously reported.
According to the company, 18 people were looked after by visitor services in the last two performances at the Stuttgart State Opera, including how they had become sick. | Image: Bernd Weißbrod/dpa
Holzinger has been causing a stir in the theater world for years with her works, in which she radically and freely showcases female bodies, incorporates painful stunts and doesn’t shy away from trash. In “Sancta” she brings lesbian love scenes to the stage with provocative clarity, ridicules Christian rituals and denounces the sexual oppression of women.
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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.
Opera house expressly warns against blood and violence
The house also expressly warns against the performance on its homepage The scandal-ridden Austrian performance artist shows explicit sexual acts as well as depictions and descriptions of sexual violence. Also be real blood as well as fake blood, piercing procedures and a wound to see. Strobe effects, volume and incense would also be used.
The artist Florentine Holzinger shocked some opera-goers with a revealing and bloody performance. (Photo handout) | Image: Matthias Baus/Stuttgart State Opera/dpa
The opera recommends the performance to audiences who are “daring in their search 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.
Opera doesn’t want to change anything about the performance
According to opera spokesman Ebling, nothing will be changed with regard to the five “Sancta” evenings still planned. Also Nausea and fainting would occur again and againhe 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.”
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It must have been similarly exciting at the premiere in Schwerin at the end of May and June. Although without comparable consequences, as Katharina Nelles, head of public relations at the Mecklenburg State Theater, emphasized. Fortunately, there were no incidents at any of the four sold-out performances of “Sancta” in which visitor services or attending paramedics were called due to fainting or nausea, she said.
