La categoria del tempo nell'oratorio italiano tra il XVII e il XVIII secolo : dal genere narrativo al genere drammatico

The oratorio as a musical genre was born in Italy in the late XVI century and the next one hundred years are thought to have been its heyday; from the point of view of literature it is traditionally considered to be a narrative genre because of the presence of a narrative part called Testo, Poeta, Storia or Istoria. Because of that, when examining the oratorio of XVII century it is possible to mark the difference between the time of narration and the time of the story narrated. In the first decades of XVIII century the part of Testo disappears and the oratorio libretto becomes more and more similar to opera seria. That is why oratorio approaches dramatic genres loosing in part its nar rative character. In fact, all these changes are due to the influence of the opera on the oratorio which was primarily sung only in churches and oratories (at the beginning during spiritual exercises after as musical concerts). In the present article, on the basis of some librettos of XVII and XVIII centuries the changes of the category of time are treated. The aim of the analysis is to show the passage of oratorio from the narrative genre to the dramatic one.