The 'Butterfly' effect

IN THE CLASSICAL Chinese opera “Butterfly Lovers” – presented over the weekend as part of Bangkok’s 17th International Festival of Dance and Music – Zhu Yingtai is a headstrong young lady well advanced of her peers. A sort of Jin Dynasty version of brave Pakistani teen Malala Yousafzai, she defies her father’s wishes and leaves home to attend school – albeit disguised as a boy. 

Much later she falls in love with her “sworn brother”, her classmate Liang Shanbo, and it’s Yingtai who proposes marriage to him.

It’s too bad that Shanbo is a bit of a fool. After three years spent day and night with Yingtai, he still doesn’t see through her disguise. Obvious hints are no help, as when she hypothetically asks whether he’d marry her if she were a girl. His reply: “How can we get married when you are a man?”

If gender-bending was the central thread running through “Butterfly Lovers”, lead actress Mao Weitao of the all-female Zhejiang Yue Opera Troupe handled it with aplomb – she was the one playing Shanbo. Mao’s baritone portrayal of the impoverished, idealistic scholar was highly convincing. (True to the style of Chinese opera, the dialogue was mostly sung in arias.)

Although “Butterfly Lovers” starts off cheerfully enough thanks to Yingtai’s wilful spirit and playful banter with other characters, the play is essentially a tragedy, befitting its reputation as “the Chinese version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’”.

Shanbo finally realises that his attraction to Yingtai is not a question of “bromance”, as he’d assumed, but he’s too late to accept her proposal of marriage, because her father has already promised her hand to a rich man’s son. 

Thereafter the plot is predictable enough – star-crossed lovers with no happily-ever-after denouement in sight – but the storyline is after all just part of the furnishing when it comes to the overall experience of watching Chinese opera. And it’s never less than enthralling to see a production by a well-established company such as the Zhejiang Yue Opera Troupe, which was voted the finest in China this year.

“Butterfly Lovers” is best appreciated with sufficient knowledge of Mandarin, since the verses are simply beautiful. Unfortunately, much of the sublime quality of the lines did indeed get lost in translation to English subtitles. As one Chinese member of the audience was overheard lamenting afterward, a lovely verse describing Shanbo was interpreted with the graceless phrase “Oh boy”.

However, even if viewers couldn’t fully appreciate the beauty of the dialogue, the set was a visual feast, as were the graceful fan-dances performed by the supporting cast. Indeed, their symmetry of movement was not unlike the perfect symmetry of the butterfly wings that give the play its name.

My only complaint about the play was that too much time was devoted to Yingtai and Shanbo’s shared lovesickness. With lines like “Brother, I miss you” being sung repeatedly, I was secretly wishing for a less painful (and quicker) death for the lovers. The overly dragged-out scene siphoned off audience attention just ahead of the play’s inevitable climax in death by romance.

Yes, this is a spoiler, in case you plan on seeing the show sometime. 

Unlike the original version of the story, in which Shanbo and Yingtai are transformed into butterflies when they die, this production represented their ill-fated spirits as two paper fans rising from the stage. Actress Mao once told the Global Times that the scene implied the spiritual sublimation of the eternal love between Shanbo and Yingtai.

 

 

A RARE TREAT

“Butterfly Lovers” was staged three times over the weekend as part of Bangkok’s International Festival of Dance and Music. The Chinese Embassy provided support in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Bangkok and Beijing. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and his wife Naraporn attended on opening night.

 

Bangkok’s 17th International Festival of Dance and Music continues until October 18 at the Thailand Cultural Centre. The next show is “Sleeping Beauty on Ice” by Russia’s Imperial Ice Stars, at 7.30pm on Friday and Saturday and 2.30pm on Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are Bt800 to Bt3,000. For details, check www.BangkokFestivals.com.