FROM COURT CHAPEL TO PUBLIC CONCERT: HASSE'S ORATORIOS FROM DRESDEN TO VIENNA

In the early 1770s J. A. Hasse proposed two of his oratorios, originally conceived for the Court Chapel of King August III in Dresden decades earlier, as productions of the Wiener Tonkunstlersozietat for the Karntnertortheater. In Hasse's revision, major changes derive from both the changed stylistic connection and the different destination (audience, performers, space) of the oratorios. This specific case of authorial revision shows very clearly the potentials of metamorphosis of oratorio as a genre permanently positioned between Church and Theatre, Court and Town.