Research On The Creation Of Judith Weir's "A Night At Chinese Opera

A Night at the Chinese Opera is a three-act grand opera by contemporary British composer Judith Weir,based on the Yuan opera The Orphan of Chao,which premiered at the Kent Opera House in 1987.The most significant feature of this work is the use of the play-within-a-play structure,which contrasts the musical and dramatic styles of the play-within and the play-without to show the difference in behaviour between the Chinese and Western subjects of revenge.The means of expression are the imaginative construction of Chinese music in the play-within and the combined use of traditional Western genres and modern musical language in the play-without.The first point is a comprehensive analysis of the play,its comedic features and the musical characteristics of the opera-within;the second point is an insightful discussion of singing forms,harmonic techniques and traditional genres.