An opera performance at the state opera in Stuttgart, Germany last weekend resulted in 18 audience members requiring medical treatment for severe nausea. They’d been watching a performance of the opera Sancta, by the Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger, featuring unsimulated sex, live piercing, and plenty of blood – both fake and real.
‘On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service,’ confirmed Sebastian Ebling from the Staatsoper Stuttgart. He added that a doctor had been called into the theatre to provide treatment on three separate occasions.
Her all-female cast performs partially or fully naked
Holzinger, 38, is no stranger to the more risqué end of the performance art spectrum. Her all-female cast typically performs partially or fully naked, and previous shows have included live sword-swallowing, tattooing, masturbation and action paintings with both blood and excrement.
‘Good technique in dance to me is not just someone who can do a perfect tendu, but also someone who can urinate on cue,’ Holzinger told The Guardian in a 2024 interview.
The story of a nun who succumbs to her erotic fantasies
Holzinger’s first opera, Sancta is based on Paul Hindemith’s Expressionist opera Sancta Susanna, from 1921. That work is itself controversial: it follows a young nun, Susanna, who finds herself seduced and overpowered by the physical presence of her maid-servant.
Susanna invokes Satan in Latin, and is told a cautionary tale by Sister Clementia: the story of a nun who succumbed to her erotic fantasies, and was punished by being bricked up behind the altar. Susanna, now in some form of erotic/spiritual frenzy, strips naked and rips the loin cloth from the crucifix at the altar. She then demands the same punishment as befell Sister Clementia.
Hindemith’s opera was scheduled to premiere at the same Stuttgart state opera in 1921, but was delayed until the following year after its apparently sacrilegious storyline drew complaints. Holzinger’s version features naked nuns rollerskating on a movable half-pipe at the centre of the stage, as well as a lesbian priest saying mass and a wall of crucified naked bodies.
Holzinger staged Sancta in her native city, Vienna, in June of this year. Bishops from the Austrian cities of Salzburg and Innsbruck labelled it a ‘disrespectful caricature of the holy mass’. She has explained, however, that the opera is less a mockery of religion, and more an exploration of the parallels that exist between the church and kink and BDSM subcultures.
‘When in doubt, avert your gaze’
‘We recommend that all audience members once again very carefully read the warnings so they know what to expect,’ Ebling explained in an interview with the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper. Anyone who books tickets to Sancta is warned in advance about the show’s various potential triggers, which include sexual violence, explicit sexual acts, incense and loud noises.
“If you have questions, speak to the visitor service,” Ebling added. “And when in doubt during the performance, it might help to avert your gaze.”
The doctors may have had to be called in – but Stuttgart’s production of Sancta is in rude health. All five of the remaining shows at the state opera house are now sold out, as are two performances at the Volksbühne in Berlin in November. No such thing as bad publicity…