The Austria Imperial Festival – What Happened?

This weblog reported last year that the Austria Imperial Festival seems to be gone.

The website still exists, but not with the austria-imperial.at domain. The website still – apparently – has not been updated since 2006. The website still tells us we can buy the CD. However, an inquiry from your truly to their e-mail contact address bounced after several days. I do not know whether there is any real or formal organization left for this festival. An e-mail inquiry from yours truly to the European Philharmonic Orchestra remains to be answered.

If you want to get the CD, I would recommend getting it either from the orchestra CD shop or from Amazon.

As for what happened to the festival, the book Royal Tourism: Excursions around Monarchy can give us an idea. The book has several pages devoted to the Austria Imperial Festival, starting on page 118, with the chapter on Austria starting on page 107. Reading these pages, we are told that a conflict broke out in the autumn of 2004, and that “republican concerns” were involved.

This development is quite sad.

However, there are other celebrations. There is the annual festival in Bad Ischl around the birthday of the late Emperor-King Franz Josef. Also, there is the annual festival in Cormons, which this year is announced to be August 22 through 23. Be not surprised if there are other commemorations this summer as well.