Over the decades, Vereinigte Bühnen Wien has built up an archive of historical recordings from over 70 years of theatre history in the city of Vienna. Whether opera, song recitals, concerts or musical productions: The archive of Vereinigte Bühnen Wien stores countless recordings, which are now made accessible through a cooperation with the Austrian Media Library of the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology.

In order to preserve these culturally and artistically valuable treasures of the media archive for the future, the recordings are now being digitised by the Austrian Media Library of the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology and secured for the long term. This is because analogue media are subject to deterioration over time even under optimal storage conditions, and there is also the risk that corresponding playback devices are often no longer available. These analogue audio carriers were digitised and archived in the digital mass storage of the Austrian Media Library in a multiply secured form. Digital long-term archiving now ensures that these recordings are permanently preserved as cultural heritage and will also be available to future generations. In addition to the digital copies for their own archives, the Vereinigte Bühnen Wien will also receive the original, historical sound carriers back. In the further course of the cooperation, further sound and video recordings will be digitised and secured for the long term and will also be available to the interested public at the end of the year.

Old sound and video material from Josef Meinrad, Oskar Werner, Theo Lingen to Juliette Greco

The digitisation of 300 audio tapes from the 1960s is currently being completed, including plays, song recitals, readings, operettas and musicals. Among them are recordings with Josef Meinrad, Oskar Werner, Helmut Qualtinger, Erich Kästner, Theo Lingen, Juliette Greco, Greta Keller, Georg Kreisler and Friedrich Gulda.

Franz Patay, General Director of Vereinigte Bühnen Wien:

"Through the cooperation with the Austrian Mediathek of the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology, sound and video material from the last 70 years of Vereinigte Bühnen Wien, from the Theater an der Wien, the Raimund Theater, the Ronacher and the Kammeroper will be made publicly accessible. We are grateful for the good cooperation and look forward to further treasures from the rich history of our historic theatres being unearthed in the course of the cooperation and thus being made accessible to all as a digital cultural memory of the city of Vienna."

Peter Aufreiter, General Director of the Technisches Museum Wien mit Österreichischer Mediathek:

"Analogue recordings are fragile contemporary witnesses and threatened by decay. Thanks to the proven expertise of the Österreichische Mediathek, the archival treasures of important cultural institutions such as the Vereinigte Bühnen Wien can be digitised and archived for the long term. This cooperation thus makes it possible to preserve this valuable cultural heritage for future generations."

About the Austrian Media Library of the Vienna Museum of Science and Technology

The Austrian Media Library is the Austrian archive for sound and video recordings and preserves Austria's audiovisual cultural heritage with over two million sound recordings and tens of thousands of videos from the fields of entertainment and serious music, literature, history, politics, everyday life and science. However, since historical recordings are fragile contemporary witnesses whose existence is endangered not least due to a lack of playback equipment, the digitisation of the media is an important task in addition to collecting and archiving. In addition, the holdings are also made accessible to a broad public on site and online and regularly prepared in online exhibitions. Most recently, the media archive of the Salzburg Festival was digitised, the Beethoven Year was celebrated with "Beethoven.vor.Ort" and the sound recording estate of Arnold Schönberg was presented in "Schönberg. A Transatlantic Listening Journey".