TRANSFORMATIONS OF STAGE TRAGEDY IN THE ORATORIOS OF GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL: FROM THE ANCIENT ARCHETYPE TO THE AUTHORIAL INTERPRETATION OF THE GENRE

Abstract

The aim of the article is to identify the aesthetic foundations of George Frideric Handel’s engagement with tragic plots within the genre of the oratorio and to describe the mechanisms of artistic modeling of moral choice (conscience, duty, faith, love) as the fundamental dramaturgical axis of Handel’s oratorio thinking. The methodological framework is based on an interdisciplinary approach that combines: genre-typological analysis (the oratorio as a moral-didactic form and as an “extra-theatrical tragedy”); ethical-aesthetic hermeneutics (interpretation of plots and finales as models of moral choice); the historical-cultural method (the English context of the eighteenth century, Protestant ethics of sola fide, Enlightenment concepts of “moral sense”); intertextual and comparative analysis (ancient theatre, French classicism, William Shakespeare, Jean Racine, John Milton as poetic and ideological sources); as well as a structural-dramaturgical approach to the musical and scenic functions of characters and collectives (the chorus as commentator and bearer of ethical norm). The scientific novelty of the study lies in clarifying that tragic orientation in Handel’s oratorio is not a random thematic choice, but a genre-determined form of moral influence on the listener, in which the tragic finale performs the function of an ethical culmination. An interpretation of death/sacrifice is proposed as a “logical continuation” of moral duty rather than as an external plot catastrophe, which shifts the center of analysis from the event itself to the inner act of conscience. It is argued that in tragic oratorios the chorus functions as a moral subject, transmitting a collective ethical position and “purifying” the drama by distinguishing between action and reflection. Conclusions. The tragic orientation of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio output reveals not an accidental narrative inclination, but the internal logic of a didactic genre oriented toward the moral formation of the listener. The oratorio, emerging as an ethically marked “narration” of a sacred or morally significant story, naturally converges with tragedy in its classical understanding: both modes of expression engage with extreme states of human existence, where affects are not merely represented but subjected to spiritual transformation. In Handel’s model, this transformation is realized through tragic conflict, which most often shifts the center of gravity from external intrigue to the inner act of conscience: the hero is compelled to affirm his moral righteousness not through argument but through self-sacrifice. For this reason, death in many of the oratorios appears not as a “random catastrophe,” but as the ethical consummation of a chosen path.