The history of German-language theatre in Slovenia, unlike that of its Slovenian counterpart, has not been subject to a comprehensive study to date, which makes this article one of the first to position Ljubljana’s Estates Theatre in Slovenian cultural history. Drawing on letters and reports that Franz Franz wrote to Baron Josef Kalasanz von Erberg, the discussion offers an insight into theatre events that took place in the city during the 1830s, when the Estates Theatre was still the only establishment of its kind in Ljubljana, frequented by both German and Slovenian theatre lovers for as long as there was still no separation of the two ethnic groups in the city. Although the Estates Theatre staged both theatre and opera performances, the article focuses on drama production.In the first part, the article presents the theatre’s impresarios, who were responsible for the repertoire and its implementation, and shrewdly navigated financial challenges to maintain the institution in sound financial condition. Then, drawing from the archival material reviewed, it presents Franz’s enthusiasm for drama, explaining that he was not only a regular visitor to the Estates Theatre, but that he also tried acting himself, and that he even translated and adapteda play for the town stage. Franz diligently and regularly supplied Erberg with the theatre program, and he wrote to him about its troupe, the quality of acting, and the number of viewers as well as occasionally about extraordinary events that punctuated the life of the theatre. His reports therefore significantly flesh out the character of the theatre and theatrical life in Ljubljana dur-ing the Biedermeier period. In its second part, the article thoroughly presents a case study of the theatre’s 1835/36 season, during which the impresario Franz Anton Zwoneczek performed not only eight operas but also as many as sixty plays. Even though it is impossible today to judge the quality of the works per-formed, it can nonetheless be established that the repertoire was a mixture of earlier eighteenth-century works and more recent plays from the nineteenth century. In addition to German classics, the productions most often staged were Biedermeier-style works discussing the social conflict related to the excessively low social status of a bride or groom. As may be gathered from the reconstructed theatre program and Franz’s reports, the audience also enjoyed German versions of French melodramas, in which the suffering heroine was rewarded for her virtuousness, and the theatre likewise attracted large audiences with historical plays and their on-stage recreations of Renaissance Italy, Puritan England, or the court of Russian Emperor Peter the Great. These occasionally also met with censorship, such as Friedrich Schiller’s William Tell (Germ. Wilhelm Tell) for its anti-Habsburg note or Victor Hugo’s Angelo for its anti-nobility stance. The Estates Theatre in Ljubljana also staged the plays of the Volkstheater in Vienna, especially Ferdinand Raimund’s magic plays, and Johann Nestroy’s popular Lumpacivagabundus. The repertoire of the Estates Theatre in Ljubljana was extremely rich and diverse, and as such completely on a par with the programs of other theatres across the monarchy. However, because it also attracted Slovenian intellectuals, it is lamentable that the assorted theatre production on Ljubljana’s German stage did not offer Slovenian playwrights an opportunity to present their own stage productions as early as the 1830s.
|
