A radical feminist opera which includes explicit lesbian sex scenes, real blood and injuries, and naked roller-skating nuns, has left 18 audience members needing medical treatment in Austria.
Sancta Susanna by composer Paul Hindemith caused a scandal back in 1921, with outraged critics labelling the one-act opera, which tells the story of a suppressed nun discovering her sexuality, too blasphemous to be shown.
Its premiere at the Stuttgart Opera was cancelled, but more than 100 years later, it has now been staged in the city for the first time – with the shock factor amped up to dizzying new heights in what its creators call a ‘radical vision of the Holy Mass’.
Its provocative scenes left theatregoers reeling, with 18 suffering with nausea and shock and requiring assistance over the first two performances. In three cases, a doctor even had to be called.
Extreme performance artist Florentina Holzinger is behind the astonishing adaptation, which sees its all-female cast playing nuns who strip off their habits throughout the ‘sensual, poetic and wild’ show.
The most bizarre scenes include an actress with dwarfism dressed as the Pope being raised up into the air and spun around by a robotic arm, while another performs Eminem songs dressed as Jesus.
Sancta tells the story of a suppressed nun discovering her sexuality. At one point she prays while watching two lovers in the garden of her convent
In one scene, tattooed nude performers clamber over a table, drinking wine and singing, while another lifts a sword in the shape of a crucifix and pushes it down her throat
A female Pope features in the performance, which critics say ‘dissects’ Catholicism
At one point an actress with dwarfism is dressed as the Pope is raised up into the air and spun around by a robotic arm
Performers wearing nun’s veils roller-skate in a half pipe during one part of the performance
The shocking performance includes nudity and ‘painful’ stunts
‘Bach meets metal, the Weather Girls meet Rachmaninoff – and naked nuns meet roller skates,’ is how the Stuttgart State Opera website summarises the performance.
The ‘feminist mass’ sees the central character, a young nun called Susanna discover her sexuality, eventually pulling down Christ’s loincloth on the crucifix in the scandalous climax. At one point, the nude nun has sex with the icon.
The performance has an age restriction of 18, and incorporates sex acts, painful stunts, real and fake blood, piercings and the infliction of a wound on stage.
Naked performers hang out of bells as clappers, with only their bare bottoms or heads visible, while others scale a rock wall in nothing but harnesses and clamber up ropes.
In one scene, tattooed nude performers clamber over a table, drinking wine and singing, while another lifts a sword in the shape of a crucifix and pushes it down her throat.
In one very irreligious exchange, an actress playing Jesus spanks a semi-naked woman of the cloth.
And in a particularly disturbing scene, bodies are strung up on the wall to mimic Christ on the cross, before vats of fake blood start pouring down over them.
Most shockingly of all, one critic detailed the moment an injury is inflicted on one of the actors live on stage.
At one point an actress playing Jesus spanks a semi-naked woman of the cloth
The provocative show is based on an opera which was decried as ‘blasphemous’ by critics
To illustrate the Eucharist, the body of Christ, a piece of skin is cut from a performer’s side, which is then grilled medium rare, according to German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
On the show’s website, it warns attendees that the performance art is ‘not fake, but real.’
In the case of the sexual violence shown, the theatre issues explicit trigger warnings, saying some may be left in ‘discomfort’ or even ‘traumatised’ by the performance.
The almost three-hour show, which has no break, proved too much for some attending its Stuttgart showings.
An opera spokesman said those affected were in the rows near the stage, and would have known ‘what they are letting themselves in for.’
The opera company recommends the performance to viewers who are ‘daringly looking for new theatrical experiences.’
In the opera, a nun warns Susanna with an old story about the nun Beata, who had desired the Saviour on the cross and was walled up alive for it
On the show’s website, it warns attendees that the performance art is ‘not fake, but real’
The cast play nuns who strip off their habits throughout the ‘sensual, poetic and wild’ show
‘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.
Responding to questions over whether nudity on stage is ‘necessary’, the State Opera website says: ‘Of course, theater and opera merely imitate reality: when people love, suffer and die on the opera stage, it is all just an act.
‘Things have been different for decades in performance art: here the person performing does not embody a character, here the body itself is the medium – and in Florentina Holzinger’s work in particular, natural nudity is a very central means of expression.’
Organisers said Sancta will go on as planned, despite the effect it had on its audience members, and insisted that nausea and fainting are normal in the theatre.
The 38-year-old Austrian choreographer behind the show has been causing a stir in the theatre world for years for her staging of nude female bodies and shocking stunts.
Themes include female sexual, physical and social oppression and a ‘dissecting’ of Catholicism and organised religion
The 1920s opera has a modern twist with contemporary music mixed with classical
There is nudity throughout the performance, which has an age restriction for attendees
Born in Vienna in 1986, she studied at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) in Amsterdam before launching her unorthodox career, and is now famous across the German-speaking world for her outlandish performance pieces.
Her works are known to trample all over the boundaries of traditional dance, mixing it with elements from martial arts, circus and stunt performances.
Themes include female sexual, physical and social oppression and a ‘dissecting’ of Catholicism and organised religion.
Her sexually charged and often violent and bloody performances are often delivered with humour, despite the often gruesome subject matter.
‘Sex is definitely a big theme for us,’ Holzinger said ahead of the show’s opening this year. ‘This is an opera about the breaking forth of the repressed female libido, so we decided to have a lot of fun.’
Unsurprisingly, Christians have hit out at Sancta, labelling its content blasphemous and offensive. ‘Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ an objector said on one of Holzinger’s posts.
It was met with outcry from Church figures in Austria when it was performed at the Vienna Festival back in June.
Archbishop of Salzburg Franz Lackner said the work went beyond the boundaries of free artistic expression by ‘seriously offending believers’ religious feelings and convictions.’
The actor playing Jesus is said to perform Eminem-inspired songs
Naked performers hang out of bells as clappers, with only their bare bottoms or heads visible
Writing for Catholic magazine Communio, Austrian theology professor Jan-Heiner Tück slammed what he called an ‘ostentatious lack of imagination’ and ‘simplistic narratives’, labelling Holzinger’s ‘fixation’ on nuns and sexuality ‘an old fad.’
‘Nowadays, people have rightly become very sensitive to how minorities are portrayed in the media,’ he wrote.
‘What should the shrinking number of Catholic religious think of such a spectacle? How do they feel when their freely chosen way of life is ridiculed in this way?’
But the divisive opera, which has also been shown in Germany and is set to be put on in Berlin next month, has also been hailed as a triumph by some critics.
‘A scandal? No, joy. Overwhelming joy,’ one reviewer wrote after seeing the show in Schwerin.
‘Holzinger is directing a musical theater for the first time, and the result is so clever, so funny, so incredibly well put together that you are truly astonished.’