The Open Air Summer Theater

Here, where motion pictures are shown today was, according to the plans of the Austrians, supposed to have been a huge “health resort palace” (Kurpalast) with dance and concert halls, a pool with simulated waves, shops and cafés. The project collapsed with the breakout of World War I, and the new Italian rulers took advantage of the filled up ground, that rests on piles, to make a beach (today’s Lido) and used the mid-section for tennis courts, to later turn them into an open air theater where European festivals of operettas were held during the 1930’s starring guests of caliber of a Kálmán and Lehár. During the 1950’s the stage was reanimated and the opera, in proportionality with the new trend, was gradually pushed out by the cinema.