This production of Sancta Susanna is not your parents’ opera. It is TOTALLY crazy. Let me explain.
Opera is one of those artforms that, try as I might, just doesn’t speak to me. Believe me, I’ve tried. This German production, however, may prompt me to try it one more time.
It’s called Sancta Susanna and is currently running in Stuttgart, Germany. You may have heard about it already through various news outlets like The Guardian, TMZ, and the NY Post which reported that a number of audience members required medical treatment after what they saw.
Sancta Susanna not a traditional opera in the vein Mozart. Puccini, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, or even Pete Townshend. It is totally crazy. It does come with a warning. (“We recommend that all audience members once again very carefully read the warnings so they know what to expect.”)
This is not a new opera, either. It’s a new version of a 1922 composition by Paul Hindesmith, which examines the relationship between lust and celibacy in Christianity. Set in a nunnery, it follows its descent into s*xual craziness focusing on the experiences of a woman named Susanna.
Here are some highlights from show which features an all-female cast.
- Naked nuns on roller skates
- Naked performers appearing as clappers in church bells
- A crucifix-shaped sword being thrust down an actress’s throat
- Live piercing
- A performer dressed as Jesus perming an Enimem song
- “A performer has a piece of their very real flesh cut off and fried on a stove.”
- A dwarf dressed as the pope spun around on some kind of robotic contraption.
The show opened October 5 and will continue until November 3. Every single performance is sold out. Then it moves to Berlin–and those shows are already sold out.
Damn.
