Mozart's Don Giovanni

Narratology is the study of story,including what happened and how it is told.It has influenced the discipline of musicology since the 1970 s,and thus,more and more musicologists have begun to research musical narrative.But since music could not denote any meaning which can represent the concepts and the objects in the world as language does,musicologists have been carefully contemplating on how to use the theory of narratology in the field of musicology.In the introduction,I have explored some questions,that is,what do we mean by “musical narrative”and what is the musical gesture? The answer to the latter question is the premise of my case study of Mozart's Don Giovanni.Moreover,I have also discussed the theory of the composer's voice,proposed by Edward T.Cone,which is the perspective of my thesis.The three chapters in the main body have been divided by the perspectives of different voices from which I have analyzed how music achieves the drama realization in terms of the dramatic motivation of every voice.Chapter one focuses on the voice of the narrator,who has commented on the dramatic events and talked directly to the audiences about the motivation of Don Giovanni's resistance against other people.Chapter two discusses Don Giovanni's voice,which has been divided into the actions of disguise and seduction.Chapter three explores the other four character's voices who have unequivocal and simplex motivations,which have all been triggered by Giovanni,that is,the imitation of Leporello towards him,the chase of Elvira after him,the vengeance of Anna against him,and the flexibility of Zerlina towards him.In the conclusion part,I first discuss the limitation of the method of opera analysis in the period of formalism and positivism.Facing this problem,many scholars have proposed that opera should develop its own analysis pattern.And my thesis is an attempt or practice to apply a pattern which may be suitable to Don Giovanni.