The Artistic Features Of "the Daughter Of The Party"

Opera is a comprehensive stage drama performance art that originates from music but has combined such art forms as music, drama, vocal music, instrumental music, dance, stage art etc. Under the influence of Western opera and with the unremitting efforts on creation and exploration from all parties in China, Chinese national opera has finally come into being in the mid of 20^th century. It is based on Ban-qiang drama and Qu-pai drama amid all Chinese dramas, different from Western opera and Chinese traditional dramas. The birth and development of Chinese national opera are meant to reflect the current Chinese social status, people's life and emotional world through this foreign art form of opera. Combining Chinese traditional music and Western music, many Chinese national opera works have been created to reflect the life of the Chinese people. Chinese national opera has undergone three stages of development since its birth in 20^th century. The initial stage of its development is before 1940's. "Sparrow and Kid", the first singing and dancing opera for Children by Li Jinhui, is recognized as the embryo of Chinese national opera. Forum on New Opera, co-organized by China Association of Operas and China Association of Music in 1957, indicates that Chinese national opera has entered the second stage and in the Forum, directions for its development have been determined. After the reform and opening-up, Chinese national opera has stepped into a new stage. "The Daughter of the Party" is just one of the works created in this period.Having collected literatures on both Chinese national opera and "The Daughter of the Party", the thesis has studied "The Daughter of the Party" with such research methods as generalization and analyzing. "The Daughter of the Party" is another work of opera reflecting Chinese revolutionary history after "Baimaoyu (The White-haired Girl)". Its characterization is simple with contrastive protagonists and antagonists and its musical creation shows the features of Chinese traditional operas. To sing this work, it is important to appropriately adjust the tone color and volume, and to enhance the effect of the opera through voice. The use of emotions shall convey its strong rhythm of the time and national pride. The variations of voice and conveyance of emotions shall be able to characterize the different characters in the work. Its performance resembles the comprehensive and procedural performance of Chinese dramas but has also its own creative parts and is not therefore a simple copy. With the study of "The Daughter of the Party", the thesis aims to explore the prospects and directions of the development of Chinese national opera.