A performance at Stuttgart’s state opera house, in which “Bach meets metal, the Weather Girls meet Rachmaninov - and naked nuns meet roller skates” has left 18 people seeking medical treatment for severe nausea after the nearly three-hour-long show.

Sancta causes bloody chaos at Stuttgarter Staatsoper

An opera by Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger has left 18 theatregoers at the Staatsoper in Stuttgart seeking medical attention for severe nausea.

The performance of Sancta, which explores “individual spirituality and faith, sexuality and pain, shame and liberation” via a combination of Paul Hindemith’s 1922 opera Sancta Susanna and “a radical vision of the Holy Mass ritual”, features live body piercing, genuine sexual intercourse and large amounts of fake and real blood.

Speaking to The Guardian, Stuttgarter Staatsoper spokesperson Sebastian Ebling said, “On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service”. 

Holzinger is known to run through the list of all possible provocations in her works; scatologic, sword-swallowing and onanistic among them. Sancta follows a young, libidinous nun who rips off Christ’s loincloth after hearing a story from an older sister. 

Video credit: Staatsoper Stuttgart / YouTube.com

Holzinger’s Sancta causes stir in Vienna

After showing in Vienna this June, bishops in Salzburg and Innsbruck condemned Holzinger’s reimagination of Sancta Susanna as a “disrespectful caricature of the holy mass”.

Holzinger has said that rather than a mockery of the Catholic Church, her opera intends to explore links between the Church, BDSM and kink subculture.

The bad reviews from Salzburg and Innsbruck have done little to dampen the opera’s wider reception, with Süddeutsche Zeitung calling the piece, “A scandal? No, joy. Exuberant joy” and remaining shows in Stuttgart and Berlin already sold out.

Thumb image credit: Diego Grandi / Shutterstock.com