Auditorium of the Castle Theater

The auditorium is a lengthwise hall with a horshoe-shaped gallery on the first floor level with several rows of staggered wooden benches on the ground floor. The gallery, which rests on pillars, houses a royal box in the center with appropriate seats. From the rear entrance of the royal box

a connecting corridor leads from the Masquerade Hall of the the castle building. In the front part of the auditorium, in front of the proscenium with its two side putti candelabras, is an area reserved for an ensemble of about 30 musicians. The width of the parterre ranges between 16.6 meters at the stage to 15.8 m in the center of the hall to 7.2 m at the end. The castle theater orchestra pit is 1.5 meters deep. The auditorium is 9.2 m tall, while the royal box is 4.8 m wide, its depth ranging from 3 m at the sides to 3.6 m on its main axis.

The walls of the auditorium are decorated with gentle paintings with painted pilasters, the main motifs of which are floral and instrumental still-lifes. The window sill of the gallery is divided into individual pictures with floral festons.

The flat roof is decorated with illusive frescoes representing a balustrade, above which is a sky enlivened by the gods. In the middle sings Apollo, accompanying himself on the lyra. Zues, the god of the heavens, listens to him with a marshall\'s staff and an eagle at his feet. In his right hand he holds a laurel wreath intended for Apollo. On the left sits Deus\' wife Hera, under her stands a goddes with a book in her hand (evidently one of the muses) who is sending Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to the king with donkey\'s ears, Midas. Under Deus\' cloud sits Luna, her paled face veiled by a halo emerging from the crescent of the moon. Her messenger is a star which chases away the powers of darkness - the phantom of hypocrisy (with a mask) and the devil (with a torch). To the left above Apollo, Famma trumpets the victory of the godly singer. The figures of the gods are supplemented with cherubs.

The painting of the auditorium continues into the proscenium with portiques drawn on the wood in illusive column architecture with richly profiled eaves and an illusive relief ceiling.

All of the paintings are the work of the Viennese theatre painters Hans Wetschel and Leo Märkel, which according to archival documents were commissioned to work on March 12, 1766. The work was finished in the spring of 1768. Both painters also decorated the Hall of Mirrors (see History of the Hall of Mirrors), where smaller theatre scenes had been up to that time. Otherwise, the sculptor Josef Muk also participated in the creative decoration of the castle theatre with the two putti candelabras occupying the sides of the proscenium from the year 1768. On the walls and pillars of the gallery are hung iron-wrought lamps, lighting fixtures, and Venetian mirrors in iron frames.

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