Page 178 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2020. Konservatoriji: profesionalizacija in specializacija glasbenega dela ▪︎ The conservatories: professionalisation and specialisation of musical activity. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 4
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konservator iji: profesionalizacija in specializacija glasbenega dela

The situation at the (German) Provincial Theatre in Ljubljana was even
more complex. With the opening in the autumn of 1911 of the new German
theatre dedicated to the Emperor Franz Joseph (henceforth known as the
Deutsches Theater), the German theatre company at the Provincial Theatre
realised its long-cherished ambition of wresting itself from the grip of its
Slovene counterpart, which was increasingly limiting its activity and grad-
ually driving it out of its original home. Previously both companies had
been housed at the same location – the Provincial Theatre – where they
shared “performance days”.11 Thus in the 1911/12 season, both Germans and
Slovenes achieved their long-held desire to have their own theatre, although
this did not guarantee the survival of either company. While the predomi-
nantly liberally oriented Slovene management faced the aforementioned in-
ternal political pressures, the Germans found themselves losing out in an
increasingly Slovene Ljubljana12 that was too small to sustain two theatrical
institutions. In turn, these factors led to the closure of both theatres, which
had shaped the musical and dramatic image of the capital for two decades
prior to the First World War.

Nationalisation of music institutions after the First World War
Like other cultural institutions in the capital, the musical sphere was char-
acterised in the post-war years by two simultaneous processes: the nation-
alisation and Slovenisation of formerly “German” musical institutions. The
newly founded Education and Religious Worship Commission (Pover-
jeništvo za uk in bogočastje) of the National Government (later the Provin-
cial Government for Slovenia), headed by Karel Verstovšek operated a rath-
er restrictive cultural policy with regard to German cultural institutions.13
During the period in which it operated, from October 1918 to November
1921, it introduced radical changes both in education and in the cultural
sphere, which also affected the functioning of individual musical institu-
tions in Slovenia.14

11 Špela Lah, “Slovensko-nemška dihotomija v Deželnem gledališču v Ljubljani med le-
toma 1892 in 1914,” Muzikološki zbornik 46, no. 2 (2010): 97.

12 Dragan Matić, Nemci v Ljubljani: 1861–1918 (Ljubljana: Oddelek za zgodovino Filo-
zofske fakultete, 2002): 433.

13 Aleš Gabrič, “Ustanovitev Opere Narodnega gledališča v Ljubljani v sklopu izgradn-
je osrednjih narodnih kulturnih ustanov,” Studia musicologica Labacensia 3 (2019):
279.

14 Ervin Dolenc, “Karel Verstovšek kot poverjenik za uk in bogočastje v narodni in deželni

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