The agencies of institutions and all kinds of theatre ‘personnel’ were important in shaping the eigteenth-century European theatrical landscape. Networks and representational strategies of the Viennese court, one of the centers of European sociocultural life, incorporated these agencies that took shape in the court’s various theatrical institutions. The theatrical agency of the Viennese court between 1758 and 1763 is documented by Philipp Gumpenhuber’s chronicle, an unique and exceptional source for European cultural life in the eighteenth century. Gumpenhuber was associated with Viennese theatrical life as dancer, choreographer and ballet master. His manuscript chronicle offers insights into the theatrical, social, and political court life.

Until recently, musicological research about eighteenth-century theatres focused strongly on the musical work as a text rather than on the ‘performance’ shaped by ‘agents’ and sociocultural surroundings. The musicological ‘performative turn’, which draws on the theoretical concepts of cultural studies, changed the perception in the field of music history and gives room for interdisciplinary ventures.

The project, led by Ingeborg Zechner and carried out at the Department of Arts and Musicology at the University of Graz, provides a scholarly digital edition (GuDiE) of Gumpenhuber’s theatre chronicles. GuDiE gathers the separated volumes of the preserved sources. The resulting digital edition will make one of the most significant sources of Viennese theatrical life in the second half of the 18th century broadly, openly and on a long-term basis accessible via a virtual platform. GuDiE creates curated and linked data for the interdisciplinary research community and existing prosopographical digital projects (i.e. VieCPro). GuDiE contributes a solid contextualization via a systematic scientific examination of the source. The edition explores the complex interactions between sociocultural, political, representational and economic factors within eighteenth century theatre business.

The GuDiE-project started in April 2024. It is being carried out in cooperation with the Centre for Information Modelling at the University of Graz, the Austrian National Library, the Austrian Academy of Sciences (projects Theadok.at and VieCPro), the Carl von Ossietzky State and University Library Hamburg, and the Institute for Public Sector Transformation at Bern University of Applied Sciences.