Summer Riding School (Salzburg, Austria)
Summer Riding School (Salzburg, Austria)
It was the theatre visionary Max Reinhardt who first imagined transforming the Felsenreitschule — the former Summer Riding School — into a stage. In the early 17th century, conglomerate rock was quarried here for Salzburg Cathedral. Then, in 1693, under Prince-Archbishop Johann Ernst Thun, Baroque architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach designed three tiers of 96 arcades carved into the quarry walls, creating grandstands for equestrian displays and animal baiting.

The Felsenreitschule became part of the Salzburg Festival in 1926, when Reinhardt staged “Faust” in its dramatic open-air setting. The first opera followed in 1948: Gluck’s “Orfeo ed Euridice”, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, who would become the best-selling conductor of all time. Today, the Felsenreitschule remains one of the festival’s most iconic venues — and gained world-wide fame for its appearance in the 1965 film THE SOUND OF MUSIC, during the “Edelweiss” performance by Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.