Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

oratorio

[awr-uh-tawr-ee-oh, -tohr-, or-] / ˌɔr əˈtɔr iˌoʊ, -ˈtoʊr-, ˌɒr- /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

“Messiah,” an Easter oratorio beloved for Christmas, suggests Christ’s meaning rather than clearly tracing his life.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2026

Harry Bicket and the English Concert presented the composer’s highly theatrical but little-known 1745 oratorio in an uneven but frequently arresting performance.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 18, 2026

Despite dealing with an oratorio, “The Choral” is more of a medley, briefly touching on one theme after another, but never convincingly.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 24, 2025

Phil artist collaborator, began a three-year Handel festival with a dazzlingly sung and played performance of the oratorio “Triumph of Time and Disillusion.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2025

Handel even quotes from Carissimi’s Rorate Filii, Israel in his own oratorio Samson, composed a hundred years later.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

George Frideric Handel wrote some 42 operas across his career — his unstaged oratorios such as “Messiah” constitute a separate category — but Seattle Opera has presented only three of these to date.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 6, 2023

Staging oratorios in the opera house is nearly routine nowadays, especially those by Handel; for every “Agrippina,” you’re likely to get a “Messiah” too.

From New York Times ● Jul. 16, 2023

Their next recording, scheduled for release this fall, is a lineup of numbers from Handel oratorios titled “Eternal Heaven.”

From New York Times ● Aug. 12, 2022

But common to both tellings, as well as the dozens of operas, oratorios, plays and films since derived from the myth of Iphigenia, is that she’s not the one who gets to tell the story.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 2, 2021

Before long, Handel’s English-language oratorios even featured home-grown English singer-soloists, too, fulfilling contemporary actor-playwright and Poet Laureate Colley Cibber’s aspiration to ‘reconcile Musick to the English Tongue’.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall




Vocabulary lists containing oratorio


Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 14,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training