Whether The Butterfly Lovers is a tragedy or a beautiful story with a somewhat happy ending depends on your outlook. The traditional Chinese legend follows the story of a woman in ancient times who is determined to be educated, even though it is frowned upon for a woman to take on scholarly pursuits. So, she disguises herself as a man and heads off to class. There she meets and falls in love with a man. Things get complicated.
The Butterfly Lovers director Ivan Heng, pictured with the Zhu Yingtai wedding gown by designer Max Tan.Credit:Simon Schluter
The story has been told countless times in countless forms – film, Chinese opera, music. This week, The Butterfly Lovers is given new life through a collaboration between Victorian Opera and Singapore’s Wild Rice theatre: an original operatic telling will have its world premiere in Melbourne on Wednesday.
“I think that it’s a tale that is very beloved, very enduring, because it’s really a tragic story,” says director Ivan Heng. “It’s about how love transcends the boundaries of society – the world at large can be very harsh.”
Heng, who is both an actor and the founding director of Wild Rice, was invited to direct a show for Victorian Opera by artistic director Richard Mills after the latter saw him perform. “I thought, rather than just picking something off the Western canon, why not find something that could appeal to both our audiences?” he recalls. The Butterfly Lovers felt like the natural fit.
While it is an ancient story, the key themes and ideas are still achingly relevant – about how society and expectations often stand in the way of ambition, and love. “Norms are very limiting – race, religion, class, gender, sexuality, all these things have put limits on this cycle of human relationships,” Heng says.
In approaching his version of this story, Heng explains how “as a starting point in almost all depictions I’ve seen, the story has always been about this girl who wants to study, to get herself educated, and she does so by passing off as a man”. It’s an attitude that he feels is still all too familiar. “We try to pass off [as] different things in order to get on with life – in order to fit in.”
The girl, Yingtai, goes on to form a strong bond with Shanbo, a man who at first sees her as his sworn brother. “In most depictions, Shanbo is seen as this innocent,” Heng says. “He only says, you know, we can get married when the truth is revealed that she’s a woman.” He pauses. “I thought it would be interesting to just really think about what if Shanbo had fallen in love with a man.”
A pre-production shot of The Butterfly Lovers, featuring Meili Li and Cathy-Di Zang.Credit:Sarah Jackson
Tradition comes through in the set, in the costumes, in the story, but all are given an edge, a bite, a modern resonance. Each of the outfits is breathtakingly detailed, butterfly motifs and a hint of fantasy laced throughout. They’re designed by up-and-coming Singaporean designer Max Tan, “who is turning out to be one of the most excellent, creative theatre costume designers”, Heng says. The score was composed by Mills, who travelled to Singapore to learn more about traditional instruments in order to incorporate them into his work.
The set also nods to the story’s roots. Designed by Heng with set designer Brian Tan, “there’s one element, really: the bridge. The rest of it is really just a table and chairs. It’s inspired by the Chinese opera, where you have one table and two chairs and you tell the audience: imagine it’s a mountain.”
Simplicity allows for the strength of the story – the performances – to shine through. Although it has been told for centuries, the core still burns. “I think that it’s a very, very contemporary story for our times,” Heng says.
The arts don’t just happen in darkened rooms, they aren’t separate from the world they exist in. “You know, in Singapore, we’ve just repealed section 377A,” he says bluntly, speaking of the law which criminalised sex between consenting male adults. “That has been years of work, you know, of my work, our work in the theatre, the activists, the community. But there’s still so much work to be done.” Asked about the role the arts play in shifting attitudes and bringing about change on a bigger level, Heng doesn’t hesitate. “Art, especially performing arts and theatre and opera, gives us a forum, a public space … where different communities can actually gather to experience and share something together, to understand things beyond ourselves.”
Whether audiences have grown up with the story or are walking in new to it, even after all this time The Butterfly Lovers has something urgent to offer. “It is a tragedy,” Heng says, but then he adds: “I think this is a message of hope. And it says: yes, love does win – in the end.”
The Butterfly Lovers is on at Arts Centre Melbourne, October 12-15.
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