Swan Song

"Turandot" is Puccini's last masterpiece,and the only one written by impressionist techniques.Whether its expression of music or the composer's view of performance is beyond the others' reach."Turandot" is totally different from his past works in terms of musical form and feature.Puccini himself once regarded it as "a creative and special work".This paper aims at the exploration of the musical characters in "Turandot" and a further comprehension of this opera.In my view,the musical feature of "Turandot" mainly lies in the originality of the music.He practiced the oriental music expression of langulage,characters,features and motivations except using driect,focused and touching vocal melodies to show the feelings of characters.The corresponding changes both in band and harmony fill the music with strength,yet with traditional style of Italian opera,resulting in an excellent artistic effect.In addition,the creative use of various musical factors and the combination of romanticism,realism and impressionism make "Turandot" an unprecedented milestone.In the end,with the chinese story as its background,this opera enhances the cordial feelings between eastern and western opera and enjoys a historic contribution.After consulting variours articles,I find that studies on Puccini's opera are flourishing both in home and abroad.So far Puccini's Turandot is much more comprehensive than others,but its contents mainly involve aesthetic theater research of that age,comparation of different versions of the script and introduction of features.The most comprehensive exposition of Puccini and his works in English monographs are noted by the Austrian-born British music writer,the internationally renowned expert on Puccini Moscow Carnahan's "Puccini Critical Biography" published in 1958.The first edition published on Puccini 100th anniversary of the first edition, republished in 1974.The book is divided into three parts:"Human","artist" and "works." The third part confined to opera-screen introduction,explaining the plot and part of the style characteristics.So topics as systematic musical analysis to the opera,further study of the structure,content of works,the form of solo and choral style,the band accompaniment texture and style characteristics of all levels of artistic features are brand-new.As a graduate student major in vocal performance and teaching research,â… deem that this paper will contribute to a further understanding of the composer Puccini and various artistic features in "Turandot" which will help large numbers of vocal learners to conduct a comprehensive interpretation and deduction.Full text is divided into the following four parts:The first part is talking about the basis for the opera's art features.A brief description about the composer Puccini;introductions about the creation time,background,source material,literary script,writers and other related basic premiere information;overview of the story.The second part of the opera "Turandot" analyses the structure.Mainly include three aspects: First,an overview of the form of the genre;Secondly,the analysis of the macro-structure;the third is the the development of the structure.The third part of the opera "Turandot" explains the musical characteristics of the opera.It is the keystone of the article.Its content respectively,ranges from the opera's overture,recitativo, aria,ensemble,chorus,to the chinese elements in the script.In terms of that six aspects,the music language and performance practices are analysed in details,as well as other characters.Part four,an overview of the opera's artistic value.First of all,the opera "Turandot" has profound social significance and historic contribution;Secondly,the "Turandot" has much original characters in music.The composer employed gifted musical techniques in the portraying of the exotic and shaping of characters,putting the harmony of person and the band both to the extreme.Rational use of drama to perform the conflict in the story,the materials and the managing of this opera especially manifest the originality of the composer.Finally,"Turandot" has an important contribution to the creation of the inheritance and development in practices.