
Excellences,
our communication courtoise is presently in abeyance, due to an intense working phase. First glimpses of the digital edition will be available in autumn!
Le très humble et très obéissant serviteur,
Rudie

Digital Edition of Gumpenhuber's Theatre Chronicle

Excellences,
our communication courtoise is presently in abeyance, due to an intense working phase. First glimpses of the digital edition will be available in autumn!
Le très humble et très obéissant serviteur,
Rudie

We are thrilled to unveil the GuDiE logo: a crowned pug silhouette that encapsulates the essence of our project, blending the social and cultural dimensions of eighteenth-century Vienna.
In eighteenth-century Europe, pugs were symbols of status and representation. This is exemplified by the Order of the Pug (Mopsorden), a satirical Masonic-like society that chose the pug as its emblem to reflect its popularity among the aristocracy. For singers Marianne Pirker and Maria Giustina Turcotti, membership in the Order of the Pug played an important role in networking (see Mirijam Beier, Marianne Pirker. Karriere einer Sängerin im 18. Jahrhundert, Würzburg 2024, p. 159). It is therefore unsurprising that hardly any aristocratic portrait from the early modern period is complete without a representative lapdog (see, for example, the portrait of the chronicle’s dedicatee Giacomo Durazzo, as well as Madeleine Pinault Sørensen, “Portraits of Animals in the Age of Enlightenment,” in: A Cultural History of Animals in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. by Matthew Senior, London 2007, pp. 157–196).
In addition to this representative function of “luxury dogs” (including pugs), which were also bred as a medium of communication for aristocratic genealogies (see Martin Scheutz, “Bologneser, Pudel und Windspiel in der Residenzstadt Wien. Hunde im Wiener Diarium des 18. Jahrhunderts,” in: Documenta Pragensia XLII (2023), pp. 422, 427), dogs also played an important social role within families during the early modern period. This is evident, for instance, in the numerous missing dog advertisements published in the Wienerisches Diarium (for a broader comparison, see Martin Scheutz, “Bologneser, Pudel und Windspiel,” in: Documenta Pragensia XLII (2023), pp. 419–472). Apparently, small lapdogs, such as Bolognese dogs, were even taken by their owners to the theater (see Scheutz, p. 451).
The depiction of the pug in the GuDiE logo can also be interpreted as a reference to the art of silhouettes, which began to spread across Europe from France in the second half of the eighteenth century (for an overview, see the “Virtual Exhibition of the University Library of Regensburg” ). The crown on the pug’s head in the logo symbolically points to the courtly environment in which the theater chronicles are situated.

The GuDiE logo reflects the core themes of our project. Just as the pug symbolized cultural and social connections in eighteenth-century Vienna, our logo pays homage to the rich and diverse cultural history of the Viennese court. Just as lapdogs served as a medium of communication for the cultural representation of the Viennese court through its theaters, the preserved volumes of Gumpenhuber’s theater chronicles also functioned in this way. By documenting the individuals involved in theater performances (both on and behind the stage) and through the critical edition of these sources, social networks – including cross-genre and cross-family networks – become visible.
<seg type=“note“>NB: The development of the logo was carried out in close collaboration with the project pug, Rudie.</note>
We were thrilled to present on the DH2025, the annual ADHO conference on “Building Access and Accessibility: Open Science to All Citizens”, from 14-18 of July, in Lisbon, at NOVA-FCSH.

Our talk was part of Session SP-11: Digital Methods for the Study of Theatre, Drama and Performance, where researchers explore new tools, models, and perspectives on the documentation and interpretation of theatrical heritage
The presentation “A Digital Edition as Performance-History Database: Modeling the Ephemeral in the Theater Chronicles of Philipp Gumpenhuber (1758–1763)” introduced our ongoing project. We highlighted some of the project’s core contributions:

DH2025 is not just about technology – it’s about building bridges across disciplines and making cultural data accessible and meaningful. We’re honored to contribute to exploring how the ephemeral can still be “traced”, structured, and shared.
Excellences,
on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the project, and as a variation on the tradition of activities in ballrooms, I took the liberty of encouraging my esteemed court staff to partake in a ball game. Unfortunately, due to illness, not my full court could participate in this activity – the staff present made a valiant effort. No damage to the bowling alley has been reported.

Particularly the new addition to the GuDiE team, Diana Korol, fait bonne figure – not only in these representative ballistic duties. Diana complements the court ideally with her expertise and has already familiarized herself with courtly structures since beginning her work in April. Following protocol, she is hereby officially welcomed into the staff and briefly introduced.
Diana Korol is a master’s student in Digital Humanities at the University of Graz. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Transcultural Communication with a focus on translation technology. She is currently writing her master’s thesis on a topic at the intersection of art history and data modeling. Her research interests lie particularly in the application of digital methods in the context of art history.
This modern transcultural communication will certainly be of use in diplomatie de cour.
Le très-humble, et très obéissant serviteur,
Rudie (Project Pug)
It’s been over a year since we kicked off the project back in April 2024, and our last update was a while ago too – so it’s high time for a progress report!
As “conseiller intime, et Directeur de menus plaisirs”, it falls to me – Rudie – to announce a change in my courtly entourage, or as we’d say these days, the project team: Sadly, Christina Dittmann has left us to serve another court. Her role was taken over in early April 2025 by Diana Korol – a multilingual envoy from the Institute for Digital Humanities. I will be sharing more about this transition and Diana’s official inauguration in a separate announcement. Protocol must be observed, after all.

At the beginning of the year, Jakob completed the base transcription of all volumes using Transkribus. Since then, Christina and Selina exported them in TEI/XML-format. Véronique and Ingeborg are now focusing on refining the transcription and edition of the source material. They have already completed fine transcription for the first three volumes (Houghton 1758, -59, and -61). This process keeps uncovering new challenges – for example, the need for some very specific tags that weren’t originally on our radar. Our editorial guidelines are being developed based on the existing transcription rules, but we are constantly navigating tricky terrain: unique handwriting styles, a lack of standardized contemporary French spelling, and the quirks of “Viennese French” all make things more complex. Since the 1763 volumes seem to have been penned by a scribe with an especially idiosyncratic take on French orthography, Véronique is currently tackling the two Vienna volumes from 1761 and 1762 first.
In parallel, we have started building a comprehensive index of all people and works mentioned in the material, to enable clear referencing in the final edition. With around 1,300 pages to cover, it’s quite a job: So far, we have recorded more than 700 individuals and 1,000 works, spanning genres like spoken theatre, opera, ballet, and instrumental music. Among the people listed are not only general court staff and musicians, but also some fairly prominent figures from various cultural contexts such as the composers Michael Haydn and Christoph Willibald Gluck, the actress Christiane Weidner (Huberin), or the singer and composer Anna Bon di Venezia.


The high number of works mainly stems from the fact that many pieces were performed only once or very rarely. These include modern French classics by Voltaire or Molière, staged at the Burgtheater, as well as German improvisational comedies and Hanswurst farces – all documented in French. One recurring challenge is identifying the original works behind translated titles, especially when those translations were rather creative. But with the help of contextual sources like Johann Leopold Ghelen’s Theater-Almanach from 1759, we have already managed to fill in quite a few gaps and match some titles definitively.
We are also currently experimenting with large language models to assist with TEI annotation, using the 1758 volume as a test case. Selina has tested several models; after multiple rounds, Claude turned out to be the most reliable in terms of accuracy. One of the main challenges is the complexity of our TEI files – particularly making sure that no content gets lost or altered during automated processing. We are trying out various prompting strategies and are in the process of evaluating the results – so, it’s very much a work in progress.
Our data model continues to evolve and improve. One particularly tricky area has been the implementation of the work index. Recently, we have had lots of discussion around the concept of “work” itself, especially in relation to adaptations and translations. To test ideas and refine definitions, we have created a few conceptual example models using the SPA (Swiss Performing Arts Model, cf. Estermann/Schneeberger 2017). We are also actively engaging with relevant literature (including Doty 2013; Mitsopoulou/Kyprianos/Brattis 2024; Skaug/Aalberg 2024; Tietz/Bruns/Sack 2023; and Tietz/Sack 2024), which helps us define our terms, assess which entities are essential for our data model, and explore how existing performing arts data models might be adapted for our historical material.
After the previous blog posts mainly dealt with our different work areas and steps (from source description to the division of a IIIF manifest using Python to transcription with Transkribus), the following post will now be dedicated to the actual content of the chronicles, examining their context, structure and data in more detail.
The theatre chronicles were compiled by the dancer and ballet master Philipp Gumpenhuber on behalf of the then Viennese theatre director Count Giacomo Durazzo. They mainly document performances and rehearsals at the Vienna Burgtheater, Kärntnertortheater and the palace theatres in Schönbrunn and Laxenburg, but also include personnel lists of the theatres’ artistic and administrative departments, among other things. With the exception of 1758, all volumes even include brief summaries of ballets, typically found at the very end on the last pages.


Excerpt from the ballet scenarios for Les Corsaires and Le Prix de la Danse,
Kärntnertortheater, 1759 [US-CAh, MS Thr 248.1]
These pages are mostly written in continuous text, in contrast to the majority of pages, which follow a tabular structure.
As of today, seven volumes have been preserved: Four are currently housed in the Houghton Library in Cambridge (MA) and three in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (for more information on this topic, see here and here). It should be noted that for each year there are always records for two theatres, namely one for the Burgtheater and one for the Kärntnertortheater. The years 1758 and 1761–63 are complete according to our current knowledge. For 1759, only records for the Kärntnertortheater have survived, and the year 1760 is currently completely missing, which is probably due to the fire of the Kärntnertortheater in 1761. Regarding the exact provenance of all volumes, the team is currently pursuing several promising leads, which will be discussed in more detail in a later blog post.
As mentioned in previous blog posts, these chronicles are a representative manuscript. This is evidenced not only by the fine red-brown leather binding with the golden Durazzo coat of arms and the gilded pages, but also by the official dedications to the Count and the richly decorated title pages, especially in the later Viennese volumes. The latter usually refer to a specific theatre. For example, the title page of the 1762 volume states that it contains the records of the Theatre près de la Cour (i.e. the Burgtheater).

Title page, Burgtheater, 1762 [A-Wn, Mus.Hs.34580b]
In addition to the exact date, the title pages usually also list several genres (such as Comedies allemandes and françaises) that were performed at the respective theatres at that time. After the fire of 1761, however, Gumpenhuber abandoned this original separation between institutional affiliation and genres (regarding that until then, German theatre was solely played at the Kärntnertortheater and French theatre at the Burgtheater). Therefore, there always exist separate records for the Burg– and the Kärntnertortheater until 1761 (and also 1763, after the reopening of the new Kärntnertortheater). For 1762, however, all activities were recorded exclusively in one volume for the Burgtheater.
The title pages not only provide information about the data of the respective volume, but also hide numerous small ‚Easter Eggs‘ that relate to the respective genres (such as the H: W: in 1762, hidden at the top inside the flag next to the head in the middle, which refers to the quite prominent comedic Hanns-Wurst figure in these chronicles).
Since their rediscovery by musicologist Gerhard Croll in the 1970s and intensive research work by Bruce Alan Brown in the following decades, the chronicles have proven to be an invaluable source for music and theatre research, as they provide a detailed list of theatre performances in Vienna for the period 1758–63, including exact dates, rehearsals, etc. (as the following example shows).
The entire preparation time, including the premiere, for the opera seria Il Trionfo di Clelia was recorded in detail over several pages (using a tabular structure) in the chronicle of 1762. This entry documents, in addition to numerous rehearsals (morning and evening, spread over a period from the 22–26 April), also the final general rehearsal (even including the exact hour) on the 26th and the premiere on the 27th of April. However, such rehearsals, including their subsequent performance, are not always listed in such a clear and straightforward manner. Quite often, there are parallel rehearsals for different productions or other performances listed in between (such as the „Service à table“ at noon on the 24th).


Rehearsals and Premiere of Il Trionfo di Clelia, 22–27 April 1762
[A-Wn, Mus.Hs.34580b, f. 40]
In addition to records of daily theatre operations, there are also personnel lists (as the personnel registers of the Kärntnertortheater from 1758 and 1759 show in the following example). Such lists are recorded both as continuous text and in tabular form. These document not only the artistic personnel, but also the administrative staff (such as „Maïtre de Loges“ and machinists, or which areas in the Kärntnertortheater which ticket sellers were responsible for).


Excerpt of the administrative staff list (1758, left) and orchestra (1759, right)
at the Kärntnertortheater [US-CAh, MS Thr 248]
Projects such as the Gluck research, for example, have already benefited significantly from these findings. On the other hand, the personnel lists also provide information about the careers of some artists and various artist networks of that time. Previous studies have since highlighted various works from the chronicles from the perspective of specific genres (e.g. Italian or French opera, ballet, oratorio, etc.). However, the broader context of courtly theatrical representation (i.e. performativity) has so far been largely neglected. This is an important point that this project is particularly trying to take into account also in its development of a data model and thus hopefully set new standards for similar future research projects.
On November 8, 2024, an interdisciplinary group of researchers and experts gathered at the University of Graz for a workshop to discuss challenges and approaches to modeling performance data. The workshop was part of the GuDiE project and aimed to exchange ideas on modeling performance data while specifically advancing and refining the project’s data model development. The “Gumpenhuber Chronicles,” which document the cultural agency of the Viennese court between 1758 and 1763, contain data on various types of performances – from Italian and French opera to ballet and spoken theater – as well as on the personnel working on and behind the stage.
Challenges and Focus Areas of the Workshop
The workshop centered on the question of how to model performance data to represent the historical, social, and cultural contexts of the chronicles in as much detail as possible.
Figure: Title slide of the GuDiE team’s project report
The workshop began with an input session from the GuDiE team, which highlighted the central challenges of the digital edition of the Gumpenhuber Chronicles, including:
The preliminary TEI/XML modeling concept and initial approaches to RDF modeling were presented and discussed.
Figure: Sample image, generated with ChatGPT
Klaus Illmayer presented Theadok, a database for collecting theater production data, and explained the integration of new data. Another contribution was made by Stephan Kurz (Austrian Academy of Sciences), who, in his presentation “Modeling Event Entities Using the TEI in Scholarly Editing: History, Examples, and a Call for Suggestions for Improvement,” analyzed the history of the TEI element <event> and its use for modeling events. Christiane Fritze presented the crowdsourcing project of the Vienna Library at City Hall, which deals with theater programs from the 1930s.
After the lunch break, Beat Estermann focused on the use of Wikidata and RDF for modeling performance data. His presentation, “Approaching the Gumpenhuber Digital Edition from a Wikidata Perspective: Data Modeling Approaches & Reflections on Data Management Issues,” emphasized the importance of structured, semantic data models and included specific comments on using Wikidata for the GuDiE project.
Anne Kauppala and Annastiina Ahola concluded the day with their presentation, “From Reprises to OperaSampo: Representing and Analyzing Historical Opera and Musical Theatre Performance Data on the Semantic Web,” showcasing how historical opera and musical theater data can be modeled, analyzed, and visualized using semantic technologies. The closing discussion provided ample time to further explore and evaluate various aspects of the workshop day.
Results and Perspectives
The workshop not only provided a platform for exchanging innovative approaches but also encouraged discussions on various modeling approaches using TEI/XML, LOD in general, and RDF.
The GuDiE project emerged from the workshop with new momentum and received numerous valuable comments that will aid in the development of the data model.

Excellences,
after a well-deserved summer break in cooler climate, it was time to once again dedicate ourselves more fully to courtly duties and set off on visits of representation to various principalities.
My entire court and I traveled (fortunately not by carriage) to the imperial city of Cologne for the annual conference of the German Society for Music Research (September 11–14). There, we provided exclusive insights into the current work of the project and exchanged views with envoys from other courts. My primary and very responsible task was to represent.
Why this noble “conference” took place in Cologne, however, is quite incomprehensible from the perspective of a Viennese court pug—after all, there isn’t even a proper court there. Apparently, much has changed in recent centuries, and French was even spoken in the city at some point. Additionally, I discovered that the “stagione di carnevale” is highly valued in this city—unfortunately, not in September. I had even brought my crown especially for the occasion.
Votre très-humble, et très obéissant serviteur,
Rudie
A crucial step in creating the digital edition is transcribing the sources. In our case, we’re dealing with 18th-century manuscripts in French, which are fortunately relatively readable, both for humans and machines. However, there are at least two, possibly more, different scribes with their quirks, and we’ve found that even the machine is still having some difficulties.
For machine text recognition, also known as Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR), we use the application Transkribus. Transkribus is based on artificial intelligence and allows for automated transcriptions of handwritten or printed sources (more on that here).
Before we could start transcribing, we had to prepare the source for Transkribus because most of the chronicles are recorded in tables, which poses some challenges for handwriting recognition. Therefore, Christina first trained a table recognition model so that each page gets the correct layout and all lines are recognized accurately. Meanwhile, Véronique and Jakob began transcribing the continuous texts and discovered a few weaknesses in the existing language model.
Working with Transkribus is both exciting and challenging. On one hand, the software significantly eases the transcription process by using machine learning, saving us a lot of time since we don’t have to type everything manually. On the other hand, manual post-processing still requires a lot of time and care, especially for structurally more complex pages. The inconsistent use of uppercase and lowercase letters for example (due to the lack of contemporary rules) especially makes our heads spin.
Correcting the automatic transcriptions however, is an essential step for further working with Transkribus. Based on these corrected pages, known as “Ground Truth,” Christina can train a specific handwriting recognition model for each scribe. This improves the recognition of letters, numbers, and superscripts, meaning future transcriptions will require fewer corrections and hopefully less time.
At the end of this post, Rudie would like to have his say:
Thank you very much!
Now that my court… erm… the team has taken a well-deserved summer break, I have also decided to enjoy my summer retreat and perform my representative duties by the pool.
Je vous souhaite à tous un bel été!
„Le très-humble, et très obéissant serviteur”,
Rudie

With the rapid advancement of digitization, it is now easier than ever to access information from all over the world at the click of a button. On her first visit to the Music Collection of the ÖNB (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) in Vienna, our project employee Véronique was initially greeted by a staff member with a friendly “You do know that the Gumpenhuber volumes are also available as scans, right?” Of course, we were aware of this, after all, Christina was already diligently trying at that time to transcribe said scans using the software Transkribus. Nevertheless, there are many arguments in favor of examining historical sources in their original form at least once, especially for a good source description (which is indispensable for a detailed edition).


As Ingeborg has already stated in part 1 (https://gudieen.hypotheses.org/284), many visual conditions cannot be correctly captured by the scan and would therefore be inevitably lost in the source description. In addition, pages are often cut off in the digital copy (due to the still stable binding of the volumes), so that whole words disappear, which are however fully captured in the original sources – a far greater problem in the Viennese volumes than in the US volumes. Véronique is still working on the collection of these incomplete passages at the moment.


(Example of an incomplete passage: Mus.Hs.34580/b, p. 38v – left: View scan / right: View original)
In addition, touching the original sources can enhance the overall understanding of the source and its context. Holding an old document in your hands allows you to appreciate its physical characteristics, such as the weight and texture of the paper, the fading of the ink, and any imperfections or damage that may have occurred over time.

The personal examination of historical sources can be a more immersive and engaging experience than digital reading and therefore offers a unique and valuable way to connect with the past. By seeing, touching, and engaging with original documents, you get an overall better understanding of the document being passed down through the hands of countless others over the years and can therefore form a tangible connection to the past. In contrast, digital copies, while convenient and accessible, can sometimes feel sterile and detached. They lack the physicality and tactility that can bring a historical source to life. While digital tools can be valuable for research and analysis, they should not replace the experience of seeing and holding original sources whenever possible.
Similar to the US chronicles (https://gudieen.hypotheses.org/284), the Vienna volumes also feature gilded pages and a green silk ribbon (although this is unfortunately torn off in vol. 2 and therefore no longer present).


Another surprising discovery was that vols. 2 and 3, while having a similar page count, appear to be different thicknesses when viewed visually. This difference in thickness is likely due to the variation in paper stock used in the two volumes. Upon initial examination, the paper in vol. 2 appears to be significantly thicker than that used in vol. 3.


Many thanks once again to the helpful staff of the Music Collection in Vienna, who has also provided Véronique with additional working materials (such as a light pad for examining watermarks, etc.) during her ongoing visits!