San Francisco Frontiers - Vienna cemetery celebrates 150 years with graveyard concerts

The vast cemetery on the outskirts of the Austrian capital is Europe's second largest, comprising around 330,000 graves spread out over 2.5 square kilometres (620 acres).

Tens of thousands of tourists as well as locals visit the Central Cemetery each month to stroll along the tree-lined avenues and tombs of many famous figures.

But as night fell Friday, Nino Mandl, a local singer-songwriter known as "Nino from Vienna", performed the last of three "cemetery sessions" to celebrate the anniversary.

Marianne Kaufmann, a 69-year-old retiree, was among the 750 concert-goers who attended.

The Viennese have a "special relationship" with death, she told AFP, as mourning was not necessarily considered "sad" but could include "laughing and singing" at funerals, since "life must go on".

Conny Maehlich, 53, said she was excited about experiencing the unique atmosphere, while admitting that it felt "a little bit spooky" to attend a concert in a cemetery.

"Every month, around 30,000 people enter through our main gate alone -- and exit it again," said Renate Niklas, managing director of the Vienna cemeteries.

"They don't just come to visit their graves, to attend a funeral, but to go for a walk, a run, ride a bike or simply relax," Niklas said.

The events to mark the 150th anniversary, which included yoga sessions and concerts, were an effort at "bringing life to the cemetery, to honour our deceased once again", she said.

"For us in Vienna it is an incredibly comforting approach to say that our deceased were not laid to rest in a place where it is dark, sad and cold, but in a place where life happens."

One of Vienna's macabre tourist attractions, the Central Cemetery serves as a final resting place for around three million people, outnumbering the city's living residents by one million.

Notable composers and musicians such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Strauss, Johannes Brahms and Johann Nestroy are laid to rest there.

Some of them arrived after a "layover" in their initial graves before being reinterred at the Central Cemetery after it opened in 1874, in a bid to boost its image.

Vienna's residents are said to have a peculiar fascination with death, as many in the city still wish to go out with a bang.

Opulent funeral services featuring performances of Mozart's Requiem, or customised funeral corteges attended by as many mourners as possible, are still regarded as the proper way to end one's earthly journey.

Austria is largely Catholic, but the cemetery has sections for Protestants, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists.

Between the main entrance and the honorary graves section, allotments for urban gardening can even be booked for people to grow their own fruits and vegetables.

A.Smith--SFF