Bregenzer Festspiele

Listen for a moment. Water laps against the stones at the edge of the promenade. Gulls call over the harbour. On a clear day the air coming off Lake Constance feels cool, even in summer. And out on the water, where you might expect only boats, a huge stage set rises from the lake. This is the home of the Bregenz Festival, the Bregenzer Festspiele, and one of the most unusual opera stages anywhere.

You are standing in Bregenz, the capital of Vorarlberg, Austria's westernmost province. Look across the water. The lake is shared by three countries. Germany lies along one shore and Switzerland along another, and Austria holds this short stretch in between. Behind you, the Pfänder mountain rises steeply above the town. Every summer, opera here is performed between the mountain and the water, with the open sky above.

The festival began in 1946, the summer after the Second World War ended. Austria was occupied, money was short, and the country had no grand new theatre to offer. So the people of Bregenz used what they had: the lake itself. According to the festival's own history, the first performance was a short Mozart opera staged on barges moored in the harbour. The audience sat on the shore. It was a modest beginning, and it shaped everything that came later.

That simple idea, a stage on the water, grew into the Seebühne, the lake stage. Today it is a permanent platform built out into the lake. In front of it, on the shore, a large open-air grandstand rises in steep rows. Several thousand people sit there on a summer night. They face the water, the set and, behind it, the wide horizon of the lake as the light fades.

Here is something many visitors do not realise. The giant sculptures you see on the lake stage are not permanent. Each production normally runs for two summers, and then the set is taken apart and a new one is built for the next opera. So the view in front of you is temporary. If you return in a few years, you will very likely find a completely different landscape standing in the water.

These sets are famous for their scale and their daring. Over the years, the lake has carried enormous objects. There was a giant eye for Puccini's Tosca. There were huge playing cards for Bizet's Carmen. There was a vast clown's head for Verdi's Rigoletto. The designers do not build a room with walls. They build a single striking image, large enough to read from the back row and strong enough to hold its own against the sky and the water.

That giant eye from Tosca had a second life on screen. The James Bond film Quantum of Solace, released in 2008, used the Bregenz lake stage for a tense sequence during a performance. Millions of cinema viewers saw this stage without knowing where it was. If you have watched that film, try to picture the scene now, with the grandstand behind you and the eye staring out over the water.

Building for the lake brings real problems. Wind can sweep across the water. Rain can arrive quickly from the mountains. The structures must stand on foundations in the lake bed and survive many months outdoors. Singers often perform on steep slopes, high platforms, or even in the water itself. Stunt performers, divers and acrobats often join the cast. Opera here is part music and part engineering.

Sound is another challenge. In a closed opera house, the walls carry the voices to the audience. Out here there are no walls, only open air and water. So the festival uses a carefully designed sound system that lets the voices seem to come from the singers on stage, not from loudspeakers. Many members of the orchestra play indoors in the nearby festival house, and their music is carried out to the lake stage. Most of the audience never notices how it works. That is the point.

The resident orchestra of the festival is the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Every summer it travels from the capital to this lakeside town on the far western edge of the country. Behind the grandstand stands the Festspielhaus, the festival house. It is a large modern building, and it allows the festival to continue when the weather turns. It also hosts indoor opera productions, concerts and smaller works, so the programme reaches far beyond the famous lake stage.

The festival takes place in high summer, roughly from July into August. During those weeks the town changes. Restaurants fill early. People in light jackets walk toward the shore as evening comes. The performances begin late, when daylight is starting to go, so the lights on the set grow stronger as the sky darkens. Many regular visitors say the best moment is when the last colour leaves the lake and the stage lighting takes over completely.

If you are here outside the festival season, you have not missed everything. The set usually stands on the lake for much of the year, and you can see it from the promenade. In the quiet months it feels different, almost like a strange sculpture left in the water. Without the crowds you can study its details, its surfaces and its shape against the shifting light of the lake. Guided tours behind the scenes are sometimes offered, so check the festival's own information.

The festival also has a close bond with the town. Bregenz is not a large city, but for weeks each year it welcomes audiences from across Austria, Germany, Switzerland and beyond. Many come by train, since the station is a short walk away. Others arrive by boat across the lake. It is an elegant reminder that this stage has always belonged to the water as much as to the land.

Before you move on, look once more at the lake stage. Notice how the set sits low on the water, and how the waves move around its base. Look at the grandstand rising behind you, at the mountain above the town and at the far shores across the lake. All of it began with a few barges in a harbour after a war. As you walk along the shore, listen again to the water. It has always been part of the music here.