This dissertation traces the roles of theology and the Trauerspiel (literally, "mourning play") in the development of German opera in the seventeenth century. Despite a variety of dramaturgical approaches, the earliest German music dramas of the seventeenth century are nonetheless products of a common conceptual background based on a foundational ideology that was truly German: Lutheranism. The Trauerspiel, which typically incorporates a Protestant moral message into a realistic, dramatically convincing tragedy, provided an important paradigm for the future of German opera. This paradigm offered a middle way between opera that simply adopted the conventions of secular Italian models, and the "spiritual pastoral," which tended to emphasize the allegorical and the abstract at the expense of an engaging realism.

The dissertation examines a number of works within their theological contexts and considers questions of dramaturgy in relation to Greek theory and contemporary Italian practice. The primary works studied are Dafne (Torgau, 1627), with text by Martin Opitz (adapted from the libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini) and music (now lost) by Heinrich Schütz; Seelewig (Nuremberg, 1644), with text by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer and music by Sigmund Theophilus Staden; Leo Armenius (Breslau, 1646), by Andreas Gryphius; Dafne (Dresden, 1672), by Giovanni Andrea Bontempi and Marco Gioseppe Peranda; Die triumphirende Treu (Ansbach, 1679), with text by Christian Heuchelin and music by Johann Löhner; and Die beständige Argenia (Reval, 1680), by Johann Meder. Specialized terminology, genres, concepts, and institutions discussed include: geistliches Waldgedicht, Heilsgeschichte, Blumenorden an der Pegnitz, Pietism, Klangmalerei, Gesamtkunstwerk, Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele, and Reyen. The project offers a cross-disciplinary perspective on the early formation of a national style.