Reopening of the festival archive at its new location in the Riedenburg
860 linear meters of rolling shelves, numerous archive and planning cabinets, a safe and steel cabinet, including the associated archive inventory – photos, glass plates, sketches, drafts, plans, books, performance materials, documents, press reports, minutes and much more – packed in more than 1. 500 boxes, have been moved over the past three months from the Schüttkasten to the new branch of the Festival Archive in the villa building at Neutorstrasse 25 and reinstalled in the new premises – with the help of many helping hands from all Festival departments.
The Festival Archive is now open to the public again, from February 15 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00 to 16:00 without prior appointment. Visits by groups and/or individuals can also be booked at other times by appointment. We will be celebrating the reopening of the Festival Archive at its new location in the Riedenburg from February 7 to 10 with open days in the new archive building.
A restructuring of the Festival Archive had become evident in the course of intensive work on the history of the institution in connection with the preparations for the state exhibition Großes Welttheater – 100 Jahre Salzburger Festspiele. Margarethe Lasinger developed the conceptual reorientation of the archive.
Founded in 1962, the archive contains an extremely diverse range of sources relating to the history of the festival. In addition to historical performance schedules, program booklets, posters and various performance materials, director’s books, stage and costume designs, incidental music, etc., it also contains construction plans of the festival theatres, extensive photographic documents, minutes and correspondence. It is also home to a specialist library, (partial) estates of well-known festival personalities such as Oscar Fritz Schuh and the holdings of the former Max Reinhardt Research Center.
Premises of the new archive
The former Villa Weizner now houses a large part of the Festival Archive’s holdings on the ground floor in an air-conditioned archive room equipped with mobile shelving. In an exhibition room – also on the ground floor – the history of the Festival is illustrated using objects, documents and artifacts and told with the help of archive material. The conservatory porch, equipped with an Everyman panel from the 1990s, is reserved for visitors to the Festival archive as a study and reading area. A hand-held device and all program books from 100 years of Festival history are available for quick access, as is a workstation with a connection to the existing digital archive holdings and large-format screens on which audiovisual recordings of Festival productions can be accessed.
A second archive room with mobile shelving and several offices for the dramaturgy, publications and archive staff are located on the upper floor.
Open days:
February 7-10, 2024, 12:00 – 17:00 Guided tours of the Festspielhaus
You can register here.
Opening hours:
Tuesday & Thursday from 10:00 – 16:00
Contact:
Archive of the Salzburg Festival
Neutorstraße 25 – 5020 Salzburg
archiv@salzburgfestival.at