The insane floating theatrical stages of Austria's Bregenz Festival
See those human-shaped figures up there? Those are people, standing on a massive book, dwarfed by a huge crown, performing in the shadow of a gigantic skeleton.
This is just one of the floating theatrical stages from the annual Bregenz Festival in Austria, and the crazy is only getting started.
The Bregenz Festival started all the way back in 1946, and in a grand fashion: the troupe put on a performance of Bastien et Bastienne (the last image below) on Austria's Lake Constance. The stage, just like the others you'll see in the gallery below, was floated out atop a barge, and there was another barge used as the orchestra pit.
The waterside spectacle continues to this day, and the stages constructed — for the likes of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca (below, first) and Giuseppe Verdi's A Masked Ball (above) — have only gotten more elaborate. See 14 of the craziest ones down in the gallery.
So, who's booking a flight to Austria?
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Bregenz Festival, via Toxel
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Tosca, 2007. (Photo: Benno Hagleitner/Bregenz Festival)
Aida, 2009-2010. (Photo: Bregenzer Festspiele /andereart)
West Side Story, 2005. (Photo: Benno Hagleitner/VISION fotografie)
The Flying Dutchman, 1989-1991. (Photo: Karl Forster)
La Bohème, 2001-2002. (Photo: Karl Forster)
A Masked Ball, 1999-2000. (Photo: Benno Hagleitner)
Nabucco, 1993-1994. (Photo: Karl Forster)
The Magic Flute, 1985. (Photo: Karl Forster)
Carmen, 1991. (Photo: Karl Forster)
Porgy & Bess, 1997-1998. (Photo: Karl Forster)
The Troubadour, 2005/2006. (Photo: Karl Forster)
Fidelio, 1995-1996. (Photo: Karl Forster)
The Tales of Hoffmann, 1987-1988. (Photo: Karl Forster)
Bastien and Bastienne, 1946. It was the first performance put on at the Bregenz Festival: "One year after the end of the Second World War, the first Bregenz Festival was held: the week-long Bregenz Festwoche. The inaugural performance was staged upon two barges moored on Lake Constance — one carrying the stage structures for Mozartâs early work Bastien et Bastienne, the other the orchestra. In a town that did not even possess a theatre, the idea of mounting a festival seemed eccentric; but the initially makeshift solution of choosing the loveliest part of the town — the lake — as the stage proved to be a hugely successful one." (Photo: Bregenzer Festspiele)
