Sancta - Stuttgart

[WagnersFourthSymphony]

Wise vipers of MN, please help me sort out my thinking on this.
Has anyone seen it?

I have a visceral reaction that is possibly just irrational old-fashioned prudery. On the other hand, that’s an argument often used to shut down discussion - by either side.

On the one hand,
I am old.
2. I haven’t seen this production. I’m relying on a newspaper report.
3. I’m generally not in favour of censorship. Let consenting adults do what they like among themselves so long as they are not really hurting anyone.
4. The audience is given ample notice of what the show is.
5. There’s no suggestion anyone was co-erced into appearing, let alone watching.
6. There’s no suggestion that children are exposed.
7. I am so squeamish I can’t bear to watch Marina Abramovic’s body art
8. People watch horror movies where worse things happen, and it doesn’t make them do bad things to other people.
9. The producers can argue there is a clear intellectual basis so it's not gratuitous offence.

On the other hand

1. I’m revolted. I go all Mary Whitehouse pearl-clutching at the idea of this being a public performance rather than something in an obscure members’ club.
2. I worry that this sort of thing (shades of Father Ted) normalises outrageous behaviour
3. It is clear that many people want to watch this sort of thing, attracted by the publicity.
4. It is clear that much of the attraction is the real life element.
5. It is clear that much of the attraction is that the participants are all women and we have enough problems already with (not all) men’s attitude to women.
6. It is so decadent it feels like the last days of Rome…

So, is this any of my business, beyond simply deciding not to see it myself? Should I mind if it moved to my local theatre?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/10/18-treated-for-severe-nausea-in-stuttgart-after-opera-of-live-sex-and-piercing

If it gives you the visceral ick, that is enough.
Why intellectualize yourself out of that?
I'm getting sensationalist/ titillation vibes, entertainment/ distraction for the bored bourgeoisie .

Interesting. And I too am old. The main question I would ask is who benefits from seeing it? (What good does it do? Does it make the world a better place?) It does not sound uplifting.

Tiresome shtick instead of genuine talent. Jackass with no boundaries and occasionally, I assume, bits of an opera breaks out. I suspect the woman's actual talent is as a self publicist and a saleswoman.

It is a shame dross like this gets commissioned, while people with worthwhile ideas starve in garrets.

But if all the participants (performers and audience) are genuinely consenting and adult it's difficult to articulate an objection that wouldn't be dismissed as pearl clutching.

Seriously though what is it with some Germans and faeces?

I'm starting to think of ancient Rome.
'Gladiators were usually enslaved people or prisoners who volunteered to fight for fame and riches. They were often between the ages of 20 and 35'

I love Abramovic and enjoy a Serebrennikov opera, but this is different to me.
It seems like the sexual activity is performed by people who are involved in the sex industry so I'm not sure I agree about the consenting part. It is a coercive industry.
Performers with a union and intimacy coordinators is one thing and this is another.
The coverage has led to it selling out, as well - it seems incredibly clichéd and sensationalist but people are into it. Grim.

I expect while the performers may feel they are part of something new and ground breaking, at some level they are probably being exploited. The fact that it involves a lot of women and nudity/sexual content means there will be a lot of grubby geezers getting off on that.
I wouldn't want any daughter/sister/friend involved with it.

The decadence of the Weimar Republic part 11?

The Weimar Republic ( opposition to it ) is in part what contributed to the rise of Nazism......and the far right is once again on the rise in both Germany and Austria,

This. Sounds tiresome and self indulgent to me. Like the the BDSM community, they can do what they like but I don't want to know about it. It's all a bit showing off.

Ha. I feel slightly torn.

I studied art in the 00s and am familiar - to the point of finding it boring - with art involving "shocking" material. I've probably seen worse live performances ages ago. Definitely not knew in the art world. Not something I'd go to but I don't especially care that it exists.

I think where I'm irked is to do with the point suggested above, that for many it's just yet another titillating viewing of women, just for middle class men. In the same way a man can wank over Burlesque and feel he's superior to your average porn consumer. This is problematic in a patriarchal society and it is so frustrating that so many self-identified-as-good people cannot see it.

Sure the premise of comparison between high religion and BDSM is interesting but I'm willing to bet that there's no feminist analysis of how patriarchal both those things are. I bet that because if it were truly feminist the news would be about men's hurt feels, not fainting from fake blood. And they'd have struggled to get funding. And the Guardian would have pretended it didn't exist.

Seriously though what is it with some Germans and faeces?

The armchair psychologist I'm identifying as today would suggest it was related to their society being so rule bound, conforming and ordered.

Because it's easy to turn my back on something that perhaps I should be concerned about as a matter of how society behaves?

I've already said I won't go to it.
In principle, I don't want to stop other adults seeing it. But if if moved to my local theatre I'm not sure I'd be so high-minded and would probably be a bit judgy about my next door neighbour's husband enthusing about it. I'd think he was a skeezy blighter, just as I judged those men who chose to squeeze between naked bodies to get into Abramovic's recent RA exhibition, instead of choosing the other route.

(And because I'm the sort of person who can't help trying to intellectualise.)

I know, @WagnersFourthSymphony , I wasn't having a go at you, so apologies if my response seemed dismissive.
I'm just bored with certain stuff but it is mostly beyond my control and would prefer my focus to be elsewhere.
I also tend to over intellectualise but sometimes I just go with my gut and it's a relief to not to have to overthink everything. Also I prefer art that is heartwarming, enlightening or inspirational in some way, so even at that level it would be a no from me.

When we are young and edgy, we have no idea how much 'liberation' is coincidentally in fact just female objectification and subjugation repackaged.

We are not really taught to see things in a more critical light, and by the time we do we often have lots of regrets.

I don't know if there's a solution to it.

I'm not 'revolted' by it, I'm not terribly shockable on the whole if people are consenting.

I'm saddened, though. Because as we get older we develop a more nuanced view of 'consent' and what context that entails.

Yes and by the time we do "see it" our opinion is already discredited (she's just jealous, she's middle aged and irrelevant, a Karen etc).

It is skeezy. Highbrow skeeze, no better than naked mudwrestling for the so-called intelligentia.

In fairness, I don't know if those are the questions that should always be asked of art. It does sound like a crock of shit though, regardless.

Meh. I'm not entirely sure why a typical Saturday night in most British towns would be any different. Maybe a few more stabbings and a drunken screaming match could be added to complete the experience.
I'm guessing the type of person choosing to attend wishes to convey the status of being worldly wise and bored of conventional entertainment, and will eat their bonbons with an air of lugubrious detachment whilst idly playing with a lock of their hair.

Much sophistication.

Some of Marina ambramovich's art though raises genuinely interesting questions about consent and whether it's OK to do something just because you have moral permission. I am not sure what questions the performance above raises other than Why????

Yes. Her early work was genuinely groundbreaking (I don't mean just the headline grabbing stuff), and she's a fantastic speaker. Intelligent, thoughtful, nuanced. Latterly she seems to have become some kind of art celeb, which is a shame, but eh. She's earned it.

She is indeed impressive! But I am squeamish about the body mods.
Brilliant interview here on R4 This Cultural Life.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00237yy

Oh, fab, thank you.

Honestly this is par for the course for some German opera productions.

I used to see a lot in Germany when DH lived there and we would come out of the theatre saying 'Not BDSM again! Isn't that so 5 years ago' It was always sodding BDSM, usually with Nazis for extra shock value.

Plus there is a fine tradition of directors doing things on purpose to shock, and audience members turning up on purpose to boo.

How the directors don't get bored with this stuff I don't know because as audience members we certainly did. Unsurprisingly trans and gender swapping is now the thing, and similarly dull.

Is anyone really still remembering and presenting the 60s and 70s in terms that boil down to 'Mary Whitehouse was wrong, Jimmy Savile was right'?

No wonder PIE is resurgent.

Not really. She was a dyed in the wool right wing homophobe - but yes, I'm with her on the malign influence of sexploitation. This is an interesting article by Samira Ahmed, from 2022, about what her diaries show.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-60556060