The thesis examines the reception and importance of Pietro Metastasio's dramatic work in Vienna and other major German centres and concentrates on the German dramatic versions of Demetrius. The first chapter discusses the eighteenth-century reception of Metastasio's Demetrius as opera and as drama in Vienna and across Germany, considers the Viennese dramatic performances of other well-known metastasian dramas and argues that Metastasio's works had their own independent literary validity before serving the music. The second chapter, which examines the publication history of both Metastasio's individual and collected works until 1800, maintains that German translations of Metastasio's texts were indeed required by Germans and Austrians during the eighteenth century. The last chapter, an intensive study of Demetrius, draws a precise comparison of a Viennese dramatic version of this work with the original Demetrio libretto, and comments on other German dramatic versions of the play. It is contended that Metastasio's texts could easily be adapted to become dramatic works. It is further argued that Metastasio was not only successful as librettist but also as dramatist in eighteenth-century German-speaking territory.

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