The Baroque Theatre Tradition

At the time when the Festspielhaus was built, there was a strong tradition in opera (and theatre) architecture that originally stemmed from the Italian 17^th century baroque opera houses and had spread all over Europe. The characteristic features of these baroque opera venues are:

The proscenium arch: the architectural demarcation between the room for the scenery and the auditorium. A kind of window or picture frame through which the spectators are looking at the world of the performance (often a perspective setting).

An auditorium that in its ground plan is shaped like a horseshoe, a bell or a semicircle – with boxes and/or galleries (sometimes as high as five storeys). The onlookers are placed according to a strong, social hierarchy with special boxes for the monarch, nobility, leading citizens, rich merchants, and the ‘ordinary’ people. A number of seats are less suited to view the perspective settings without distorting the illusion, but one can watch a large part of the audience from these places.

During the performance the auditorium was relatively well lit. Although there is a marked tendency to darken the houses more and more this was rather difficult to achieve in a satisfactory manner for technological reasons. Besides: it was standard practice to read the musical score during the performance.

The orchestra was placed in front of the stage. Even if the orchestra pit was sometimes below the floor of the ‘parterre’ (the pit), the musicians were constantly visible.

Often these theatres had more than one function. Not only performances were given there but the venues were used also for parties, dinners, receptions and dances.

One of the apparent disadvantages of these baroque houses is the problem of sightlines: the spectator often has to be quite a contortionist if he still wants to witness some of the wonderful theatrical ‘tricks’ that designers and theatre technicians devise.