Opera Of The Year

I don’t suppose you expect to be on the receiving end of medical treatment on a night out at the opera, but this is what happened to eighteen members of the audience who attended two performances at the Stuttgart State Opera of Sancta, a interpretation of Paul Hindesmith’s original opera, Sancta Susanna, by Austrian choreographer, Florentina Holzinger. The performance featured live piercing, unsimulated sexual intercourse, and copious amounts of fake and real blood.

When Holzinger brought Sancta to Vienna, bishops from Salzburg and Innsbruck criticised it as being “a disrespectful caricature of the holy mass” but the choreographer insists that far from mocking the church, it explores the parallels between it and the kink communities and BDSM subcultures. Hmm. Mind you, she also said that good technique in dance is not just someone who can do a perfect tendu, but also someone who can urinate on cue, which puts a whole different perspective on the judging process deployed by the judges on Strictly.

The prospect of needing medical attention, though, has not impacted ticket sales. All five remaining shows at the Stuttgart state opera, as well as two performances at Berlin’s Volksbühne in November, have since sold out.