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The BBC Symphony Orchestra Performs the UK Premiere of Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly at the Barbican

Oct. 24, 2024

The Barbican Centre presents the UK premiere of Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang's highly acclaimed opera, M. Butterfly on October 25, featuring the BBC Symphony Orchestra and an outstanding cast of soloists under the baton of Carolyn Kuan with stage direction by James Robinson and re-staging direction by Kimberley S. Prescott.

In M. Butterfly, René Gallimard, a civil servant at the French embassy in Beijing, falls in love with a beautiful Chinese opera singer named Song Liling. Song holds two shocking secrets, both of which eventually bring Gallimard professional and personal ruin.

M. Butterfly’s plot is inspired by the true story of a French diplomat who carried on a 20-year love affair with a star of the Peking Opera. The story’s many parallels with Puccini’s Madama Butterfly are echoed in the new work paying tribute to the history of Opera, while simultaneously turning it on its head by rectifying what the composer deems the “kind of imbalance between East and West, the smaller picture [of] the interplay of male and female,” and the treatment of Asians found in Puccini’s original work.

Huang Ruo notes, “I want people to understand the story, but also to ask questions. That, to me, is the best opera can do: Not to provide answers, but to provoke questions. And to leave the audience asking questions about their own background, their own journey.”


"Laughing Chorus" from the opera M. Butterfly〚蝴蝶君〛/Santa Fe Opera/
Carolyn Kuan, conductor/James Robinson, director

To learn more about Huang Ruo, visit schott-music.com.

Huang Ruo
M. Butterfly (2019)
libretto (Eng) by David Henry Hwang
sop.cten.bar.bbar.chorus
2.2.2.2-2.2.2.1-2perc-str
120'

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