The architect who carved a world-class opera stage into a cliff. Clemens Holzmeister worked on Salzburg Festival venues across multiple building phases from 1926, culminating in the extraordinary 1956-1960 expansion of the Grosses Festspielhaus, a feat of engineering that drove the stage through the Monchsberg rock face itself.
The result is one of the largest stages in the world, built not on flat ground but into and through a mountain. Holzmeister also designed Turkey's parliamentary buildings in Ankara, but the Festspielhaus remains his most audacious work. He died in Hallein, just south of Salzburg, at the age of 97.
