Comparison Of The Musical Image Shaping Of "Princess" In Turandot And The First Emperor

Success of the image character shaping of characters in opera creation is the linchpin to success of an opera.Turandot by Puccini and The First Emperor by Tan Dun are both operas themed on the ancient Chinese palace.Both narrate the love story of a Chinese princess.This paper comparatively studies the music image shaping of the female protagonist in Turandot and The First Emperor,respectively.The drama image and the music image are combined to deeply and contrastively examine the music image shaping of “Turandot” and “Princess Yueyang”.On that basis,the status of Chinese operas is reflected.This paper consists five chapters with Chapter 1 as the introduction part,Chapter 2 to Chapter 4 as the body part,and Chapter 5 as the conclusion part.Chapter 1:constitutes the introduction part,in which why this research is conducted and the significance of studying this research question are introduced.Besides,ideas held by previous scholars about Turandot and The First Emperor are comprehensively summarized and analyzed.The research questions requiring further investigation are put forward,and the research focuses and research methods are pinpointed.Moreover,the script of the two operas and the image of the two princesses are expounded.Chapter 2:proceeds from the music perspective,combines the opera plots and revolves around the music image shaping of the princess to contrastively analyze the “theme music” rising when the two “Chinese princesses” appear in the respective drama the first time.Under the same identity background,the two composers endow them with image characteristics,which have both differences and similarities.Chapter 3:the love story of Turandot and Princess Yueyang is adopted as the main plotline.The duet episodes of the two princesses with their lover,family members and the third party are extracted from the two operas for comparison.Comparison results point out differences and similarities between the image shaping techniques of Puccini and Tan Dun in coping with the same contradiction.Chapter 4:the arias of the two princesses in the two operas are examined.Though both are themed on love,the final reconciliation means is different.The human nature expression and the exposition of the Oriental culture by Puccini and Tan Dan in handling the same theme demonstrate both similarities and differences.Chapter 5:is the conclusion part,which summarizes the innovative opera creation concepts based on analysis of the opera script,theme music,duet and aria.Finally,integration between Western and Chinese cultural elements in the opera is explored.At the same time,the author reflects on the development status of Chinese operas.