So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye! What DID make the Eurocrats choose Sound of Music setting for showdown with May?
THE imposing building in which Theresa May delivered her Brexit speech to EU leaders was used to film The Sound of Music’s famous ‘So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye’ song.
The Felsenreitschule theatre in Salzburg featured the scene depicting Maria von Trapp and her children singing the song before fleeing to Switzerland to escape Nazi persecution.
Images released of an EU summit working dinner at the theatre were also likened to a gathering of villains from a James Bond movie. But EU diplomats said the idea the venue could have been chosen deliberately was a ‘conspiracy theory too far’, adding: ‘It did look like a Bond lair, however.
‘You were expecting [Austrian Chancellor] Sebastian Kurz to have a red button which he could press and leaders disap-
pear if they misbehaved. The truth is, no one knew what the programme of this dinner was going to be when the venue was chosen.’
The 17th century Baroque building is partcarved out of the mountain it sits next to. It provided a dramatic backdrop to Mrs May’s speech in which she tried to sell her Chequers plan to the remaining 27 EU leaders. Sources said she was effectively handed the ‘graveyard’ slot and spoke for just ten minutes after the leaders spoke for four hours about migration first.
The summit has been organised by Austria, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency.