Institutionalizing Opera in Turkey Carl Ebert and the Opera Studio

Abstract

When analyzing the period of “music reform” in Turkey, researchers are grouped around two main tendencies. Those in the first group focus on laws and rules, while those in the second focus on the composers known as the Turkish Five. Yet, there is a body of source material that can break the monotony of existing studies, reveal new knowledge relating to private documents, and illuminate the political dimension of the cultural relations between Turkey and Germany during the 1930s and 1940s and the conflicts between European and Turkish musicians. This body of material consists of the reports and letters of the European experts who worked on the institutionalization of music in Ankara between the years 1935 and 1947. This article focuses on one of these experts, Carl Ebert (1887–1980), in the context of his work in Ankara between 1936 and 1947. It aims to provide new insights into the institutionalization of opera in Turkey and the cultural life of Turkey during the 1930s and 1940s through the study of an important actor who has so far been neglected. Ultimately, the article highlights the need to expand the source material for a critical evaluation of the established historical narrative of music reform that has been dominant and as well as highly functional and coherent for the political orientation of Turkey since 1950.