festival
A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...
of
drama
Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
in the tradition of the ''
commedia dell'arte
Commedia dell'arte was an early form of professional theatre, originating from Theatre of Italy, Italian theatre, that was popular throughout Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. It was formerly called Italian comedy in English and is a ...
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
n town of
Spittal an der Drau
Spittal an der Drau is a town in the western part of the Austrian federal state of Carinthia (state), Carinthia. It is the administrative centre of Spittal an der Drau District, Austria's second largest district (''Districts of Austria, Bezirk'') b ...
,
Carinthia
Carinthia ( ; ; ) is the southernmost and least densely populated States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The Lake Wolayer is a mountain lake on the Carinthian side of the Carnic Main ...
.
After a group of
Viennese Viennese may refer to:
* Vienna, the capital of Austria
* Viennese people, List of people from Vienna
* Viennese German, the German dialect spoken in Vienna
* Viennese classicism
* Viennese coffee house, an eating establishment and part of Viennese ...
dramatists around
Thomas Bernhard
Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright, poet and polemicist who is considered one of the most important German-language authors of the postwar era. He explored themes of death, iso ...
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
courtyard of Porcia Castle for theatre performances, the festival opened in 1961 with an enactment of Shakespeare's ''
The Comedy of Errors
''The Comedy of Errors'' is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play ...
''. Since then, the festival has been held each summer in July and August. Stagings included notable guest appearances, as from Fritz Muliar,
Erika Pluhar
Erika Pluhar is an Austria, Austrian actress, singer, and author, born on 28 February 1939 in Vienna. She is the daughter of Anna and Dr Josef Pluhar. Pluhar's younger sister, Ingeborg G. Pluhar, is a painter and sculptor. Erika Pluhar is not rela ...
Heidelinde Weis
Heidelinde Weis (17 September 1940 – 24 November 2023) was an Austrian actress. Weis died on 24 November 2023, at the age of 83.ORF broadcaster.