Mönchsberg
Still a storm at Stefan Zweig.
“Where the dilapidated path sinks down in the shade of autumnal elms /
Far from the huts of foliage, sleeping shepherds /
The dark figure of coolness always follows the wanderer…”
We are greeted with verses by Georg Trakl when we climb the Mönchsberg from the Toscaninihof. Festspielhaus architect Clemens Holzmeister wrested 122 steps from the rock for the staircase named after him and used crushed concrete to model the vault and a railing in the shape of a monstrous snake, like the one that frightens Tamino at the beginning of The Magic Flute: “Help, help, otherwise I’ll be lost…!”
But we are not lost, even if the dark Trakl guides us. At least we can continue to indulge in literature if we continue our walk past the Stefan Zweig Center towards the Kuppelwieser-Schlössl, Peter Handke’s Salzburg residence during his daughter Amina’s high school years.
There, near the Richterhöhe, there is a historic vineyard that the scouts look after and have breathed new life into so much that a surprisingly drinkable wine has been harvested for a few years now. 2011 was the premiere for the Frühroten Veltliner Mönchsberg Zwinger, at the same time as the commissioned work “Still storm” by Peter Handke for the Salzburg Festival, who wanted an Osmizza from the Blue Goose. It should be a Slovenian wine tavern in honor of Handke and for the upliftment of all Salzburg residents from near and far, an event like in the vineyards of the Trieste Karst, as a Salzburg version in the front garden of the Stefan Zweig Center. Together with the festival’s technical team, we created a place that couldn’t be more poetic: somnambulizing along the borders of Europe, stylishly between the cultures of the sea and the mountains. In the glass: either the wine from the Karst or – available exclusively from us at the time – from the Mönchsberg, to taste which you had to make your way up the steep path.
Impressions
