‘18 dizzy people": Opera with sexual scenes stuns audiences in Germany
Explicit sexual acts, lesbian love scenes*, depictions of sexual abuse and ridicule of Christian rituals top the list of triggers that its audience has to deal with.
In Germany, a strong wave of criticism was unleashed against the age-rated opera ‘Sancta’, full of bold warnings, which premiered on Saturday at the Stuttgart Opera House, reports Bild.
The opera is based on the work of composer Paul Hindemith, which was included in the repertoire of the cultural body a century after its creator faced strong indignation over the text of the fruit of his imagination, branded ‘blasphemous’.
However, after the first two performances, the visitor service had to attend to a total of 18 people, some of whom were nauseous, while in three cases a doctor had to be called, according to Sebastian Ebling, the play's official spokesman.
Explicit sexual acts, lesbian love scenes*, depictions of sexual abuse and the ridiculing of Christian rituals top the list of triggers its audiences have to deal with. However, the cultural organisation recommends the show to audiences who are ‘daringly looking for new theatrical experiences’, since, according to Ebling, apart from the use of some theatrical means, the performance art ‘is not fake but real’.
Despite complaints from the public, Ebling assured that the five planned evenings would not be cancelled, and said he was confident that most of the audience were aware ‘of what they were getting into’. Before Stuttgart, the production was staged in Schwerin, ‘sold out’, where no medical emergencies were reported.
‘Degeneracy’ and “scum”.
Stuttgart's dean, Christian Hermes, launched harsh criticism of the opera and claimed that the work depicts ‘naive, not to say cheesy, sexual-spiritual dreams of redemption’. ‘Those involved and visitors are brutally pushed to and beyond the limits of what is aesthetically and psychologically tolerable, religious feelings are obscenely violated [...] and people's mental health is deliberately played with,’ Hermes commented, joining some internet users who dismissed the opera as “degeneracy” and “scum”.
