Comparison And Research On The Opera Creation Of Gluck And Wagner

Since four centuries before, the first stage drama work which was called "opera" was born in Florence of Italy, Opera this kind of comprehensive art has already seeped through each corner of Europe or even the whole world all the time. The reason that the opera has thus big vitality is related to its composing inseparable. The opera as a kind of stage arts is composed by the drama, music, dance, building, painting, and other various independent arts and so on. But drama and music are the most basic and the most important chemical element in the constitution of opera. Therefore, people usually call them "the music of the drama" or"the drama of the music". Although this kind of parlance isn't accurate enough, It still reveal an important problem that who takes up a predominant position, or who services whom, namely a problem concerning the discussion of opera's natural character in the history of opera development. In fact,the discussion with this point has already baffled a lot of composers and dramatists for a few centuries, But it is still come to no end up to now. On music history, It also has taken place three bigger theory wars once which were on the problem of opera's natural character, Including "the war of Comic Opera"of Rousseau,"the war of Opera Reform", whose key sponsor was Gluck and"the war of Total Art"which was held by Wagner. The Opera creation and reforms of Gluck's and Wagner's both have caused the huge sensation and influence on the history. Their works were continuously imitated by their respectively descendants. their opera reforms also reversed the deviation during the development of opera. We can say that the opera reform of Gluck lays a solid foundation for the development of Italian opera and the later brilliancy. The opera reform of Wagner made his dream come true and at the same time declared the ending of an age and the beginning of the 20th century's non-tune music. The aim of this paper choosing Gluck and Wagner to carry on a comparison is exactly based on their great contributions to the development of opera and the relationship of inherition and development between their opera reforms. In addition, we could acquire an all-round and thorough knowledge about the create styles of Gluck's and Wagner's by comparing their differences and common characters. At meanwhile, from the inherition and development of their opera reforms we could find the essential differences and advanced time of them.