EP 2024: Sancta

Based on Paul Hindemith’s 1922 short work Sancta Susanna – in which a nun confronts the violent punishment of sexual self-determination – Florentina Holzinger’s SANCTA bridges Bach and Rachmaninoff with metal, noise, and contemporary compositions to reclaim the gore of Catholic mass and address the violent history of the Church. Countering the religious discipline and punishment of (female*) sexuality – abortion, homosexuality, sex work, pleasure – SANCTA stages sexual sensations and practices as a pathway to not-only-religious ecstasy. In a quest for magic and transcendence, body artists twist the religious topoi of scarification, penetration, transformation; show magicians propose their take on the Bible’s miracles; the Sistine Chapel turns into a climbing wall, God into robot, opera into rock musical. Mass turns into spectacle and, in Florentina Holzinger’s words, real magic needs to happen. Spiderlike and dark, loud and excessive, funny and redemptory, SANCTA is the trigger warning for mass.

10 / 11 / 13 / 14 / 15 June, 7.30 pm

Halle E im MuseumsQuartier

German, English

English and German surtitles

approx. 2 hrs. 35 min.

Hinweise

Ages 18+ only

The performance includes self-harming acts, sexual acts as well as representations and descriptions of (sexual) violence. Strobe effects will be used during the performance, as will blood and needles.

Q&A

11 June, following the performance

Direction, Choreography, Performance Florentina Holzinger Musical Direction Marit Strindlund Performance by and with Andrea Baker (Klementia), Annina Machaz, Blathin Eckhardt, Born in Flamez, Cornelia Zink (Susanna), Emma Rothmann (Alte Nonne), Fibi Eyewalker, Fleshpiece, Florentina Holzinger, Gibrana Cervantes, Helena Botelho Jørgensen, Jasko Fide, Laura London, Luci Fire Tusk, Luz De Luna Duran, Malin Nilsson, Netti Nüganen, otay:onii, Paige A. Flash, Renée Copraij, Saioa Alvarez Ruiz, Sara Lancerio, Sophie Duncan, Veronica Thompson, Xana Novais Choir Opera choir of Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Orchestra Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin

Sancta Susanna Op. 21 Composition Paul Hindemith Libretto August Stramm Messe Composition, Arrangement

Johanna Doderer Composition, Supervision Stage Music Born in Flamez Composition, Sound Design Stefan Schneider Composition, Production Nadine Neven Raihani Additional Composition, Arrangement Christopher Kandelin, Gibrana Cervantes, Josephinex Ashley Hansis, Karl-Johann Ankarblom, Odette T. Waller, otay:onii Stage Music Blathin Eckhardt, Born in Flamez, Gibrana Cervantes, otay:onii, Paige A. Flash Choir Direction Aki Schmitt Dramaturgy Felix Ritter, Fernando Belfiore, Judith Lebiez (Schwerin), Michele Rizzo, Miron Hakenbeck (Stuttgart), Philipp Amelungsen, Renée Copraij, Sara Ostertag Direction assistance Xavier Perez Stage, Costume Nikola Knežević Technical direction Stephan Werner Technical assistance Dörte Wilforth, Emma Juliard, Jan Havers Stunt Coordination Ronny Horning / Gravity Stunts

Stunt Advisor Joe Toedling / Stunt Factory Robotics Zoe Bassi Light design Anne Meeussen, Max

Kraußmüller Video design Maya Čule Sound Technician Olivia Oyama Sound trainee Joschka Crusius Stage assistance Christiane Hilmer Puppet design Silke von Patay Production management Sarah Parolin, Katharina Wallisch, Giulia Messia Tour management Sarah Paolin, Moira L Sunter Garee Management, Distribution neon lobster / Giulia Messia, Katharina Wallisch Translation surtitles Philipp Amelungsen Surtitles Susanne Löcher

Production Florentina Holzinger/Spirit, neon lobster, Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater (Schwerin), Staatsoper Stuttgart Coproduction Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Berlin with Komische Oper Berlin, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen (Antwerp), Julidans (Amsterdam), Theater Rotterdam Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Germany) Further funding partners Ammodo, Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien With the support of Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlichen Dienst und Sport (Austria), Anna und Manfred Wakolbinger Support in the research phase Goethe-Institut Thanks to Caritia Abell, Sebastian Eckermann, Linnea Vogel executed by the team of the Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien

Premiere May 2024, Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater (Schwerin)

Author Rights Sancta Susanna, op. 21 © Courtesy of Schott Musik, Mainz Blow, Gabriel, blow; Words & Music: Porter, Cole © WC Music Corp. Courtesy of Neue Welt Musikverlag GmbH, Choreography Sophie Duncan

EXCESSIVE AND REDEMPTORY

Anna Leon about SANCTA

There is no trigger warning before Catholic mass. Yet mass involves looking at aperson clawed into a cross with nails poking through their hands, blood dripping from a crown of thorns forced onto their head; it involves listening to tales of torture, pain and desperation that might befall some of us after we die. Florentina Holzinger’s SANCTA turns the gore of mass and the violence of the history of the Church into the hands of those who have, in different ways, been its targets.

Opera has often sublimated mass, contributing to an emotional and spiritual experience disconnected from the violence perpetrated in the name of religion. But it is a very particular and underacknowledged part of opera’s past that forms the starting point of Holzinger’s work: Paul Hindemith’s 1922 short opera Sancta Susanna, in which a nun confronts the violent punishment of sexual self-determination. Through inputs by contemporary composer Johanna Doderer, Born in Flamez and Stefan Schneider, the music is pushed to extremes of vocalisation, forced to say what it might have been written to help forget. Bach, Gounod, Rachmaninoff and other top-chart liturgical hits are reinterpreted by a choir of female* voices. The performers’ bodies – vocal cords, larynx, muscles, bones, sweat – turn into instruments that interpret but also take hold of the music.

Much of the violence of the Church is related to sexuality. Some of it is exerted onto vulnerable bodies, as scores of abused children would testify if their voices were sought and heard.

Some of it is drilled into bodies, internalised and performed anew, through the pathologisation of (female*) subjectivities deemed deviant, the de-legitimation of sex for pleasure or work, the overt stigmatisation of homosexuality, the pressure towards unattainable physical purity. If the Church disciplines and punishes sexuality now to achieve salvation later, SANCTA reclaims sexual sensations, experiences and practices, and stages them as a pathway to not-only-religious ecstasy, in an act of sisterhood with Sancta Susanna’s refusal to subsume desire to discipline. And such reclaiming is work: there is construction work – ropes, hammers, a cement machine – on Holzinger’s stage, and there is sex work too, the counter-archetype for sexual self determination. But there is, for many, more to the Catholic faith than gore and violence: there’s also magic and spiritual transcendence. Catholic mythology is a repertoire of non-rationalist transformations: a lotus flower turns into a divine pregnancy, water turns into wine which then turns into blood, bread turns into flesh. In SANCTA, theatre becomes public ritual, seeking magic in spectacle. Body modification artists twist the religious topoi of scarification, penetration, blood and transformation into on-stage metamorphoses. Performers use training and discipline to develop super-human skills, and show magicians propose their take on the Bible’s miracles. A skating ramp leads to redemption while the Sistine Chapel turns into a climbing wall, Bach into metal, opera into rock musical, God into robot. Mass turns into spectacle and, in Florentina Holzinger’s words, real magic needs to happen.

Florentina Holzinger, born 1986 in Vienna, is a choreographer, director and performance artist. She studied choreography at the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) in Amsterdam. Her diploma project, the solo performance Silk was awarded the Prix Jardin d’Europe at ImpulsTanz Festival 2012. Florentina Holzinger’s dance pieces are driven by the notion of identity, sexual and physical transgression. Drawing inspiration as much from Viennese Actionism, body art and bodybuilding as from classical ballet, cabaret and circus, she deconstructs, performance after performance, the very definition of femininity. Together with Vincent Riebeek, Holzinger developed a trilogy of pieces that toured internationally: Kein Applaus für Scheiße, Spirit and Wellness. In 2015, they presented the follow-up Schönheitsabend – Tänze des Lasters, des Grauens und der Extase. In autumn 2015, Holzinger’s second solo work Recovery, an experimental reflection of her recovery from a traumatic stage accident, had its premiere. The piece examines different forms of female representation and explores the full potential of female physicality. It was continued in a series of workshops on martial arts. Since 2017, Florentina Holzinger presented her works Apollon and TANZ. Eine sylphidische Träumerei in Stunts. The latter was invited to Theatertreffen 2020, got awarded “Production of the Year“ by Theater heute magazine, and won the NESTROY prize for best direction. In her work Étude for an Emergency at Münchner Kammerspiele in spring 2020, Florentina Holzinger and an ensemble of stuntwomen, opera singers and actors focused once more on the spectacle and disciplining of the female body. The next year, A Divine Comedy followed at the Ruhrtriennale and in 2022, her latest hit performance Ophelia’s Got Talent premiered at the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. It was named “Production of the Year” by Theater heute and “Best Production” by TANZ magazine, got invited to Theatertreffen 2023 and was awarded two NESTROY prizes and the FAUST award for best dance performance.

Swedish conductor Marit Strindlund is the artistic director of the Spira Theatre and Concert House, Jönköping. She held the post of general music director of Folkoperan Stockholm from 2013 to 2021, with whom she has conducted many successful productions such as La Traviata, Turandot, Satyagraha, The Magic Flute, Carmen, and The Tales of Hoffmann. Previously, Marit Strindlund has conducted numerous opera productions in Belgium, the UK and Norway. During several seasons, Strindlund has worked as cover conductor at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for various ballet productions. As a symphonic conductor, Strindlund regularly appears with orchestras such as the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Norrlandsoperan Symphony Orchestra, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Wermland Opera Sinfonietta, amongst others. Together with Melika Mellouani, she has also curated Opera Showroom – a festival of contemporary and experimental opera. She has worked with renowned chamber ensembles such as the Spectra Ensemble Ghent, B’Rock Antwerp, I solisti del Vento Antwerp, KammarensembleN and Gageego. Her strong interest in contemporary music has led her to conduct many first performances of new symphonic works and chamber operas by Swedish, British and Belgian composers. She has initiated and conducted a Nordic concert series of contemporary music called Inversion, made into a documentary and a concert broadcast by Swedish National Television (SVT). Strindlund has appeared many times together with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Radio Choir in concert broadcasts by Swedish National Radio (SR P2). She is appointed by the Swedish Minister for Culture as a member of the artistic board of the National Swedish Performing Arts Agency.

PUBLICATION DETAILS Owner, Editor and Publisher Wiener Festwochen GesmbH, Lehárgasse 11/1/6, 1060 Wien P + 43 1 589 22 0, festwochen@festwochen.at | www.festwochen.at General Management Milo Rau, Artemis Vakianis Artistic Direction (responsible for content) Milo Rau (Artistic Director) Text credits Original contribution by Anna Leon, 2024. Picture credit Cover © Tammo Walter , p. 6 © Nicole Marianna Wytycza Produced by Print Alliance HAV Produktions GmbH (Bad Vöslau)