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A radical feminist opera is causing a stir that is driving disturbed audience members to require medical treatment.
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Sancta, adapted from the original 1921 opera Sancta Susanna, tells the story of a suppressed nun’s journey of self-discovery and sexuality.
The three-hour show – featuring explicit lesbian sex scenes, nuns on roller skates, crucifixions, real blood and actual injuries – horrified attendees to the point where a doctor needed to be called in to the German theatre for three of the 18 guests who suffered from excessive nausea, the U.K. Times reported.
The one-act show features sex acts, real and fake blood, and painful-looking stunts along with scenes of violence and nudity.
Some of the provocative scenes include nude performers scaling walls, an actress portraying Jesus spanking a scantily clad nun, and the show portrays a bloody crucifixion.
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Sancta Susanna, composed by Paul Hindemith, was supposed to premiere in 1921 at the Stuttgart Opera but was cancelled after critics blasted the story as too blasphemous.
More than 100 years later, the adaptation has upped its shock factor with an all-female cast in what creators call a “radical vision of the Holy Mass,” pushing the boundaries of traditional opera, the show’s website claims.
For those who were sickened by the show, a representative for the opera told the Times, “We recommend that all audience members once again very carefully read the warnings so they know what to expect.”
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Susanna, the main nun, discovers her sexuality and eventually pulls down Jesus’ loincloth on the crucifix, then later has sex with him.
One particularly disturbing scene shows a performer have a piece of her actual flesh cut off and fried on a stove, according to the Daily Mail.
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The show’s website warns attendees that the performance art is “not fake, but real.”
The opera’s artistic director, Viktor Schoner, added: “Exploring boundaries and crossing them with pleasure has always been a central task of art.”
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