Here on the leafy outskirts of Salzburg, in the shadow of its rugged castle, there is a building that changed the course of European culture, and inspired the Edinburgh Festival, the biggest arts festival in the world.
Film buffs will recognise Schloss Leopoldskron as the von Trapp residence in The Sound of Music, but the most significant event in the history of this palatial house occurred at the end of the First World War, when it was bought by Austrian impresario Max Reinhardt. It was here that Reinhardt hatched the idea for the Salzburger Festspiele, an international festival designed to reunite old enemies through their shared love of the performing arts. Reinhardt described this pioneering project as “the first work of peace.”
