(Credit: Matthias Baus)

(Warning: This article features descriptions of explicit content)

The Staatsoper Stuttgart saw 18 audience members require medical treatment over the weekend following performances of “Sancta Susanna” in a production by Florentina Holzinger.

According to the Guardian and TMZ, the production featured a live piercing, unsimulated sexual intercourse, and copious amounts of fake and real blood. The Daily Mail which first reported the story added that production includes “an actress with dwarfism dressed as the Pope being raised up into the air and spun around by a robotic arm, while another performs Eminem songs dressed as Jesus” and sees the female cast “playing nuns who strip off their habits throughout the ‘sensual, poetic and wild’ show.”

The New York Post also reported that the production showcases “naked performers appearing as clappers in church bells, others scaling walls while wearing only harnesses, and a crucifix-shaped sword being thrust down an actress’s throat.” This is also an actress portraying Jesus who spanks a semi-naked nun. The most shocking scene of the production according to media reports was “a performer has a piece of their very real flesh cut off and fried on a stove.”

In a statement, the company’s spokesperson Sebastian Ebling said, “On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service.” He added that a doctor had been called in for treatment in three instances.

Additionally, Ebling told the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper “We recommend that all audience members once again very carefully read the warnings so they know what to expect.”

The company said that audience members were alerted with several warnings including incense, loud noises, explicit sexual acts, and sexual violence.

Holzinger is known for performances that blur the line between dance theatre and vaudeville and her all-female cast typically performs partially or fully naked. Some of her shows have included live “sword-swallowing, tattooing, masturbation, and action paintings with blood and fresh excrement.”

Hindemith’s opera is Holzinger’s first opera production which originally premiered at the Mecklenburg State Theatre in May and was later shown in Vienna in June. When the production premiered in Vienna, it was criticized by Bishops from Salzburg and Innsbruck.

Hindemith’s opera premiered in 1922 after being canceled in 1921 and faced controversy as it examines the relationship between “celibacy and lust in Christianity, depicting the descent of a nunnery into sexual frenzy.” When the work premiered critic, Karl Grunsky wrote that the performance “signifies a desecration of our cultural institutions.”

“Sancta Susanna’s” production opened on Oct. 5 and is set to run through Nov. 3 with all shows sold out. Additionally, the production will be shown at Berlin’s Volksbühne in November and is already sold out.