Convent Theatre
New opening for a very special guest
A young girl steps out of a magnificent carriage. The monks of the Benedictine Order in Lambach are in high turmoil. It is a special visit. Nervously, the girl pushes her Habsburg lower lip forward, just a tiny bit, to give a particularly royal impression. It is Marie Antoinette. Stefan Zweig describes this attitude in his famous biography Marie Antoinette in order to indicate her highly placed lineage.
The Habsburg princess is on her way to France to marry the Dauphin, the future King Louis XVI. On her way there, she takes up quarters in Lambach. In honour of her visit and for her entertainment, the monks reopen the baroque theatre.
For the Benedictine Order, theatre and the performing arts have played an important role since the Counter-Reformation, using art as a means of re-Catholicisation. The original idea was to convey the spiritual texts of the Sunday afternoon masses once again in the form of a musical play. Over time, the monastery's playbills expanded to include themes from antiquity and secular plays.
The theatre, as visitors know it today, dates from the time of Abbot Amandus Schickmayr in the second half of the 18th century. It had to be renovated because in 1770 a special guest, Marie Antoinette, the prospective Queen of France, was to stay overnight in Lambach on her journey to France.
In 1769, the abbot had 'the theatrum put in better shape'. In March 1770 Wenzel Turetschek begins to renovate the theatre and paint the stage front with mock architecture. He only has less than a month to do this, as it is to be opened on 23 April on the occasion of Marie Antoinette's arrival.
One of the poet-monks, Father Maurus Lindemayr, writes the play Der kurzweilige Hochzeitsvertrag (The Entertaining Wedding Contract) for the inauguration and the high visitor, to accompany her on her journey. However, the fact that the Habsburg princess also makes a journey to the guillotine is the tragedy of this marriage.
The Lambach Baroque Theatre Association has been performing in the space since 2003. As Austria's only preserved monastery theatre, it is indeed a special feature.
