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30 July – 28 August

In 1927, improvements were yet again carried out on the Festival Hall, this time the stage area. A proscenium curtain was added, the stage technics refined, the orchestra pit enlarged. The intention was to perform opera in this theatre.

A new production of Fidelio (conducted by Franz Schalk, directed by Lothar Wallerstein, set by Clemens Holzmeister) for the Beethoven centenary celebrations tested the Festival Hall on 13 August 1927 for the first time as a venue for opera – and revealed acoustic deficiencies, as the press reported.

RAVAG (Austria’s first public broadcasting corporation was founded in 1924 and ­existed until ORF was founded in 1958) had already broadcast a Festival performance for the first time in August 1925 – Mozart’s Don Giovanni conducted by Karl Muck from the Stadttheater/City Theatre (today: Landestheater/State Theatre). In summer 1926, three Festival opera broadcasts followed, transmitting to several South German ­stations as well as the Austrian ones. In 1927, Zurich, Prague, Warsaw and Zagreb were added to the list.