The article presents the most complete reconstruction to date of the repertoire of the Ljubljana Estates Theatre in the 1830s – in particular, in the years discussed in Franz Franz’s letters. Because the German-language stage of what was then the only theatre house in the town hosted both opera and theatre performances, an overview of its program offers fresh insight into the Biedermeier-style cultural atmosphere in the capital of Carniola, demonstrating that the diverse repertoire of the Estates Theatre in no way lagged behind similar institutions across the Habsburg Monarchy. Franz’s letters contain information on the theatre performances staged in Ljubljana from 1833 onward, providing a basic framework for the reconstruction of the theatre program. However, due to the incompleteness of the information, they need to be supplemented with other sources. First and foremost, these are theatre journals (Germ. Theaterjournale) as one of the most reliable sources on stage performances at the Estates Theatre. For the period under study – that is, the 1833/34 to 1839/40 seasons – seven theatre journals have been preserved, which divide the seasons into two parts: autumn (from September to the end of December) and winter or spring (from New Year’s Day to Easter). Another important source for the reconstruction of the theatre program is the preserved playbills or theatre programs (Theaterzettel) that were printed before each performance and posted across the city to inform theatregoers about what show was due to be staged that evening. The collection of playbills (the Comedien-Zettel-Sammlung), which is held by the National Museum of Slovenia, only contains material until the end of April 1837. To reconstruct the last theatre seasons that Franz reported on in his letters to Baron Josef Kalasanz von Erberg, it was further necessary to draw from a third source – the collection of the Higher Theatre Direction, held in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia in Ljubljana. Here, the reconstruction of the repertoire was mainly based on the records of the Estates Theatre’s revenues that the impresarios recorded more or less systematically for individual seasons. For each work staged, they indicated the date of performance, title, genre, and revenue generated; unfortunately, they only exceptionally recorded the authors of the works staged.The reconstruction of the Estate Theatre’s program for the seven seasons allows a better overview of the descriptions provided by Franz and, despite certain questions that remain unresolved due to the nature of the sources available, offers a starting point for further studies in theatre, music, German culture, cultural history, translation, and other areas. The article not only sets Ljubljana’s theatre side by side with those in Vienna and other major cities across the monarchy, but it also places it in the cultural and historical context of the Biedermeier period and offers a solid basis for future comparative research.
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