Libretto,Music,Implication:A Study On Bartok’s Opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

Bela Bartok (1881-1945) is the Hungarian famous composer and ethnomusicologist, His only opera "Duke Bluebeard’s castle " is one of the outstanding works in the 20th century.The author uphold Coleman’s music standpoint "Music Carries Drama" to exam this opera from the three aspects:libretto of opera’s theme, music ontology, humanistic implications. First chapter is about origin of Bluebeard’s motif and various literary version, the opera of Charles Perrault’s "Bluebeard "related to this paper, a brief introduction of the opera libretto construction, and Hebbel’s tragic thought and literature of symbolism effected the libretto writer--Balazs, that establishes comprehensive understanding of opera literature. The second is a macroscopic analysis from two aspects:the opera scene, the overall structure. The third chapter mainly analyzes the characteristics of musical language from three aspects:the image characterization, the creation of dramatic atmosphere and the "personality" of the metaphorical instrumental music. In the third chapter, the symbolic and metaphorical features of musical language are summarized from the microscopic point of view. The fourth chapter is to explore cultural meanings of the opera with McClary’s Feminism, Freud’s Psychology, Sartre’s Existentialism and other relevant philosophical literature theory, from social gender and fate arrangement between the characters to have a new interpretation on Bluebeard and Judith. The conclusion part is based on the four chapters of analysis and discussion, it is concluded that "Duke Bluebeard’s Castle" is a psychological opera, making us rethink about opera interpretation standpoint and exploration meaning of humanistic path.