“Sancta” by Florentina Holzinger disturbs parts of the audience in Stuttgart

The visitors could have been warned. The Stuttgart State Opera had already given its planned seven performances of the opera performance “Sancta” by Florentina Holzinger an age rating of 18 and over in advance and had provided clear instructions accordingly. The theatrical means of a live performance used in this production are “not fake”; among other things, “real blood as well as fake blood, piercing processes and the infliction of a wound can be seen”. “Sexual acts” also take place on stage.

Despite the warning, the effect of some passages in the performance caused a total of eighteen audience members to feel unwell during the first two performances in Stuttgart. At the premiere last Saturday, the State Opera’s visitor service had to look after eight people and on Sunday ten people, the spokesman for the house confirmed to the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten” and the “Stuttgarter Zeitung”, which first reported on the incidents. In three cases, the condition of those affected was so impaired that a doctor had to be called.

“I am beautiful!”

The almost three-hour production by the 38-year-old choreographer from Austria, who has become known for her drastic, sometimes extremely physically demanding performances, addresses, among other things, the tension between spirituality and sexuality. Holzinger combines her criticism of religion with a critical look at the history of sexual and institutional violence against the female body. She uses the early opera “Sancta Susanna” by Paul Hindemith as her starting point.

The German composer wrote this one-act play at the beginning of 1921 based on a text from 1914 by the expressionist August Stramm. It describes a kind of awakening or liberation experience of the eponymous nun. Reports about a nun who climbed naked up the cross in the church and embraced the figure of the Savior caused Susanna to become so ecstatic that she took off her clothes, presented herself to her fellow sisters and announced: “I am beautiful!”

The premiere, which was planned in Stuttgart at the time, had to be moved to Frankfurt in 1922 following protests against the text, which was criticized as blasphemous. There, as well as three years later in Hamburg, there were scandals; church circles and right-wing parties tried to have the piece canceled. Hindemith himself withdrew the work in 1934, initially as a precaution, and then permanently in 1958. It has only occasionally returned to the program since the 1980s, including in combination with Puccini’s monastery drama “Suor Angelica”.

Pleasant transgression

Florentina Holzinger is now following the opera, which is only 20 minutes long at the delayed premiere in Stuttgart, with a much longer second part with her own performance, which is intended to denounce the oppression of women and make “faith, sexuality and pain, shame and liberation” the theme. The performers around Holzinger appear mostly naked; there are lesbian love scenes and a female Christ figure.

Despite the irritation of some visitors, the evening is celebrated by the audience, as was the case with the premiere series in Schwerin and with a guest performance at the Vienna Festival Weeks. The next five performances in Stuttgart – all sold out – should take place unchanged. However, the State Opera emphasizes the age restrictions that have always existed and the warnings cited at the beginning. Viktor Schoner, the director of the house, commented on the production, probably with foresight, with the sentence: “Exploring boundaries and crossing them with pleasure has always been a central task of art.”