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Audience Feels Sick During Opera With Real Sex
Eighteen audience members at the Stuttgart State Opera required medical attention for severe nausea last weekend after attending a performance featuring live piercings, non-simulated sex and large amounts of fake and real blood.
"The guest services team had to look after eight people on Saturday and 10 on Sunday," opera spokesman Sebastian Ebling said of the two productions of "Santa" by Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger. He added that doctors were called in to provide assistance in three cases.
According to The Guardian, Florentina Holzinger, 38, is known for her freewheeling performances that blur the lines between dance theatre and vaudeville. The all-female cast usually performs partially or fully nude, and previous shows have included sword swallowing, tattoos, masturbation and fight scenes with blood and fresh excrement.
"For me, good dance technique is not only someone who can dance their tendons beautifully, but also someone who can pee on command," Holzinger told the Guardian earlier this year.
Holzinger's first opera, "The Saint," premiered at the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater in Schwerin last May. The work is based on Paul Hindemith's controversial 1920s expressionist opera "Saint Susanna."
Hindemith's original opera tells the story of a young nun who, after hearing a story told by one of the older women of the convent, goes naked to the altar and commits sacrilege there. Upon encountering a large spider, she repents of her actions and begs the other nuns to chain her to the wall.
The premiere was originally planned for the Stuttgart State Opera in 1921, but it was not staged until 1922 after protests over its blasphemous content, The Guardian notes.
This version, which caught the attention of the Stuttgart public this year, replaced the original musical performance of naked nuns rollerskating on a mobile halfpipe in the centre of the stage with a wall of crucified naked bodies.
After Holzinger brought the Sancta to his hometown of Vienna last June, the bishops of Salzburg and Innsbruck condemned the work as a "disrespectful caricature of the Holy Mass."
The Austrian cultural activist has previously claimed that her opera was not meant to mock the church, but to explore the similarities between conservative institutions and perverted communities and sadomasochistic subcultures.
Ebling told the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper: "We urge all viewers to read the warnings carefully again so they know what to expect. Visitors to the "adults only" show were given a long list of warnings in advance about possible triggers, including incense, loud noises, images of sex and sexual violence.
"If you have any questions, please contact Visitor Services," Ebling added. "And if you have any doubts during the performance, look away."
The Holzinger Temple suffered no commercial damage as a result of the reports of medical assistance being sought in the hall. The remaining five concerts at the Stuttgart State Opera and two performances at the Volksbühne in Berlin in November are sold out.