Oratorios became extremely popular in early seventeenth-century Italy partly because of the success of opera and the Catholic Church’s prohibition of spectacles during Lent. Oratorios became the main choice of music during that period for opera audiences.

Oratorio Compared to Opera

It is constructive to compare the Oratorio to Opera to fully understand the distinctions of each genre:

1. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias.
2. While opera is staged , the oratorio is  not staged. There is also  little or no interaction between the characters.
3 There are no costumes  props or special lighting for the oratorio.
4. The oratorio  deals with sacred topics  making it appropriate for performance in the church. Protestant composers took their stories from the Bible, while Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints, as well as to Biblical topics. The typical subject matter of Opera tends to deal with history and mythology, including age-old devices of romance, deception, and murder.

1600 –  origins of the oratorio

The origins of the oratorio can be found in sacred dialogues in Italy. These were settings of Biblical, Latin texts and musically were quite similar to motets.
1. There was a strong narrative, dramatic emphasis and there were conversational exchanges between characters in the work. Giovanni Francesco Anerio’s Teatro harmonico spirituale (1619) is a set of 14 dialogues, the longest of which is 20 minutes long and covers the conversion of St. Paul and is for four soloists: Historicus (narrator), tenor; St. Paul, tenor; Voice from Heaven, bass; and ananias, tenor.

2. There is also a four-part chorus to represent any crowds in the drama. The music is often contrapuntal and madrigal-like. Philip Neri’s Congregazione dell’ Oratorio featured the singing of spiritual laude. These became more and more popular and were eventually performed in specially built oratories (prayer halls) by professional musicians.

3. Oratorios  were chiefly based on dramatic and narrative elements. Sacred opera provided another impetus for dialogues, and they greatly expanded in length (although never really beyond 60 minutes long). Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo is an example of one of these works, but technically it is not an oratorio because it features acting and dancing. It does, however contain music in the monodic style. The first oratorio to be called by that name is Pietro della Valle’s Oratorio della Purificazione, but due to its brevity (only 12 minutes long) and the fact that its other name was “dialogue,” we can see that there was much ambiguity in these names.

1650–1700:  Trends 

During the second half of the seventeenth century, there were trends toward the secularization of the religious oratorio.
1. Evidence of this lies in its regular performance outside church halls in courts and public theaters.
2. Whether religious or secular, the theme of an oratorio  include  such topics as Creation, the life of Jesus, or the career of a classical hero or Biblical prophet.
3. Other changes eventually took place as well, possibly because most composers of oratorios, such as Handel,  were also popular composers of operas. They began to publish the librettos of their oratorios as they did for their operas.
4. Strong emphasis was soon placed on arias while the use of the choir diminished. Female singers became regularly employed, and replaced the male narrator with the use of recitatives.The most significant composer of oratorio latino was Giacomo Carissimi, whose Jephte is regarded as the first masterpiece of the genre. Like most other Latin oratorios of the period, it is in one section only.

This selection is part of the Christmas Oratorio By Heinrich Schutz. Check this link for some background information o this composer.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Sch%C3%BCtz

The Late Baroque Oratorio

In the late baroque oratorios increasingly became “sacred opera.”
1. Italy:  In Rome and Naples Alessandro Scarlatti was the most noted composer. In Vienna the court poet Metastasio produced annually a series of oratorios for the court which were set by Caldara, Hasse and others. Metastasio’s best known oratorio libretto La passione di Gesù Cristo was set by at least 35 composers from 1730–90.
2. Germany: In Germany the middle baroque oratorios moved from the early-baroque Historia style Christmas and Resurrection settings of Heinrich Schütz, to the Passions of J. S. Bach, oratorio-passions such as Der Tod Jesu set by Telemann and Carl Heinrich Graun. After Telemann came the galante oratorio style of C. P. E. Bach.

3. Great Britain:  The Georgian era saw a German-born monarch and German-born composer define the English oratorio. George Frideric Handel, most famous today for his Messiah, also wrote other oratorios based on themes from Greek and Roman mythology and Biblical topics. He is also credited with writing the first English language oratorio, Esther. Handel’s imitators included the Italian Lidarti who was employed by the Amsterdam Jewish community to compose a Hebrew version of Esther.