The study looks at 18th century music theatre in German (as an early form of mass-media culture) specifically in terms of the way it interrelates with the development of a modern form of anthropology. The volume contains a typological overview of the parameters governing this multi-media genre and the diachronic changes they underwent, paradigmatic analyses of the relation between dramaturgy and anthropology with reference to a number of selected works, an outline of contemporary theories of the genre, and a comprehensive catalogue of original works in German performed between 1760 and 1800.