Analysis On The Shaping Of Characters Of The Opera Dido And Aeneas

It is often argued that Purcell’s music has many foreign things. Such as a large number of exquisite dances come from the French opera, the recitative vivid psychological descriptions come from Francesco Cavalli, drama scenes come from Lully.But the author think he is a great British musician, his view of drama, opera. Chamber sonatas and string fantasias, neither France nor Italy, on the contrary, completely Purcell himself.In his opera "Dido and Aeneas", although absorbed the experience of the French and Italian Opera,but he combined British characteristic and distinctive personal style, perfect performance, bold imagination, freedom and unique form of each inspiration into the creation of his own, so it has simple, profound lyricism. Especially at the end of the aria of opera Dido "when I sleep on the ground floor", shows a shocking tragedy forces in contrast to the fixed bass.Purcell used the form of opera successfully and shown the tragic destinies, through to the description of leading character innermost feelings conflict, he molded the character from the multiple perspectives.In "Dido and Aeneas", Purcell took the music as the main means, through layers of dramatic conflicts, created distinctive characters, especially the final aria of Dido, which has manifested the final sorrow incisively, and shaped a heart grieved, distressed despair image, her love and death were extremely great,which has showed her inner world fully and manifested the power of music and play perfectly. Aeneas’s tragedy was to obeys to fate, who gave up their love and happiness, also a pitiful character.It’s an irreconcilable conflict between Dido and Aeneas, through expansion of conflict, revealed their emotion suffering and psychology suffers, achieved the emotional climax.Purcell used Virtuoso counterpoint,the fixed bass, the sharp dissonance,the bold harmonies turn to make "Dido and Aeneas " cover huge emotional space, which showed the depth and breadth of human emotion. This article make the necessary of combing and research work from the general introduction of "Dido and Aeneas," the reason of the opera birth, figure portrayal, historical connotations,which make an analysis comprehensive and profound, it take opera portrayal as focus point, through the analysis of the figures contradiction, presents a distinctive image of the opera, excavates the opera connotation, also revealed Purcell’s characteristics of compositional techniques and style source.