To Build A Musical Tragic Female Image Through Desdemona In Western Opera ’Othello’ And Zi-Jun In Chinese Opera’Mourning’

Opera, as one of the bright pearl in the world’s theater history, has its unique artistic charm. It originated in the West, is a comprehensive theatre art that blend organically music, drama, literature, dance, the stage art etc."Due to the surprisingly results of ’integrating sound and image’, opera was known as a strange and perverse entertainment in the18th century. And today, it has become a global cultural phenomenon, more attractive than at any time of the last400years." In the1930s and1940s, Chinese musicians began to learn from Western opera, create many opera works themed at Chinese story. Since then, Chinese opera became an important part of the world opera. Tragedy is an important common genre in both Chinese and western theater, its unique expressing form, aesthetic concerns and value really deserve our attention and research. The studies of each music aesthetic elements in tragic opera, may contribute to the singers’ correctly grasp of the works, and promote the deeper study of opera’s connotation.In Western operas, tragedy is many masters’ favorite creative themes. In their works, the composers build not only the heroic male characters, but also a lot of kind and innocent female roles. Most of these women were marked by tragic sense, which experienced emotional ups and downs and then die for love. Using delicate musical performance, the composer presented these distinctive, rough-fated female characters in front of the audiences. In this paper, through analyzing the music and arias of Desdemona (heroine in Western opera’ Othello’) and Zi-Jun (protagonist of Chinese opera ’Mourning’), the author will combine the text-research with her practical experience on the stage to discuss how to build a musical female image in the tragic plot.