LIBRETTO

sung in ENGLISH

中文歌词 (READ IN CHINESE HERE)

A tribute to M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang
Premiered in Beijing in 2023
Re-arranged in 2025 for the China Now Music Festival

Music by Ma Hanrui
Libretto by Pan Geng

TIME: 1930s

LOCATIONS: REPORTER’s apartment, the prison.

CHARACTERS:
REPORTER/JUDGE: baritone, 40 years old. (played by the same actor)
ERIKE: tenor, 52 years old, a French officer.
FENG: Male Dan role in Peking Opera, 30 years old, a spy from China.

Scene I

REPORTER’s apartment, contemporary sets.
Enters REPORTER, holding paper and a pen.

REPORTER
Here comes a strange thing,
about the French officer Erike and his Chinese lover.
In the 1930s, in Shanghai,
on a summer night,
Erike came to the theatre,
annoyed by the heat and crowd...
Suddenly,
Time frozen,
Everything around frozen,
From the depths of the stage,
there came a woman,
like a vision from another world.

REPORTER
The play that day,
is called Farewell, My Concubine.
On the last day of the hero,
The beauty suicided with a sword to show her love.
As the play came to the curtain call,
with the mixed feelings of grief and joy, he went on the stage,
to the woman, to show his love.
He decided to never be apart from her.
They had been in love for years…
Until one day,
The woman vanished.
He was put on trial.
Turned out the true identity of the woman
Is a spy,
a… male spy.
The story sounds unbelievable and absurd.
I would explore their psychology,
before I turned it into the news.

Music fades. Lights go down.

Scene II

1939, the prison. Sounds of prison’s doors and chains ring.

ERIKE dressed in prisoner's uniform, paces back and forth.
REPORTER slowly dresses in JUDGE’s uniform.

ERIKE
Ah! Enough!
The perfect life of mine,
a nest of vipers all along!
Just one night,
she disappeared without a trace.
I waited for her but what came at last is jail.
Now I am the joke, for everyone, a joke.

JUDGE/THE ENSEMBLE PLAYERS
A spy?
A man?

ERIKE
Ah! Enough!
Deception! Fooling!
Humiliation! Betrayal!
Unbelievable!
Who would know?
How would I know?
Could you have known?
And how, how could I?!
Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!
I did not know the truth!
I was framed!
I did not! I did not! I did not…

The light hits JUDGE. JUDGE questions harshly.

JUDGE
Silence! Listen to me!
ERIKE
I deny it!
I swear I did not know!

ERIKE
Over the past few years,
have you been providing confidential information?

ERIKE
The material was kept in the safe.
The password was only known to myself.

JUDGE
The password? Your first encounter’s date!

ERIKE
But how would she know?
How would she remember?
Unless?
Unless from the start a plot!
Unless she’d been already reading through my mind.
She disguised herself with innocence.
The strife of the world,
seemed to have nothing to do with her.
The dreaded spy!
She used to have all my trust.

JUDGE
Then where did that trust come from?

ERIKE
We’d been living together for over a decade.

JUDGE
Then did you not know that she was actually a he?

ERIKE
We had a child,
and she avoided me, went back to her hometown to give birth.
When me met again, she was already a mother when me met again.

JUDGE
No more lies!
What blinded you?
What made you such a fool, such a failure.
What blinded you,
too deep to see the truth behind.

ERIKE
I would like to learn about it, too.
What made me a fool of failure.
What made me dive so deep into this play,
too deep to see the truth behind.

FENG enters, dancing gracefully at the back of the stage.

FENG
“A few clouds floating on a sunny night sky. Moonlight starts to shine. What a graceful autumn view.”

ERIKE
FENG! You…Is it you?

FENG
My king…!

ERIKE
Ah—it is you! It is you!
This silk, this splendor—you wear for me?
This jeweled crown— you placed for me?
These tears that burn upon your face, —for me?
Stay!
Turn to me!
Look at me!

Light isolates FENG. She turns, a vessel of sorrow.

FENG
My king returns from the campaign.
No matter victory or defeat,
Wine is ready.
Let me drink with you.
Let us drown our sorrows.
My king, please. Please.

ERIKE
Great!
One cup of wine with you,
And a million armies turn to dust!

FENG
Let me sing for you, let me dance.
Let me quiet your soul.

ERIKE
A song, for me!
A dance, for me!
This is the moment I have lived for!
Sing of our hatreds, sing of our wars!
Dance on the ashes of our sorrows!

FENG
My king, the storm is coming!
(Sobbing softly)
No feast can last into the dawn,
And I am not the master of my own fate……

ERIKE
(In a panic)
FENG, it’s you!
You are my flame,
My only light,
a candle in the dark,
Flickering… fading… always just beyond my reach……
A shadow hiding in the silk and gentle gauze,
A fleeting spirit in this agony of life…

FENG
(With resolute finality)
It is over now.
The end is here.
How can I, your servant,
be a burden to my beloved King?
So be it… Let it be!
(She turns away with a flick of her sleeve)

ERIKE/ FENG:
And her / my devotion…

FENG takes off the costume, reveals the light voile garments inside.

ERIKE
(angrily)
You! You! You!
You have deceived me!
You said it to my ears over and over.
You said that you only belong to me!
In your infinite love for me,
that you’ll even do the same, like the play,
that you’ll die for me.

JUDGE
You admit it!

ERIKE
I was blinded by myself.

JUDGE
You're being punished for treason!

ERIKE
I plead guilty.

JUDGE/THE PLAYERS
Life in chains! No parole remains!
Locked forever! Free? Never!

ERIKE
I can no longer face this
The key is to cut myself open,
to figure out what has confused me.

REPORTER
Vanity?

ERIKE
I have never gained recognition and admiration,
or the privileges of a king.

REPORTER
Solitary?

ERIKE
Solace in a land far from home,
whispering through all the night,
a precious soul mate.

REPORTER
Lust, possession and greed?

ERIKE
She fulfilled all of my fantasies.

REPORTER
Of the orient,
of woman,
of love as perfect,
all these fantasies.

ERIKE
I must embrace my desire.
Conflicted collisions of life,
is the obsession I’ve been searching for.

Yu Ji wields her sword.

REPORTER
What kind of person is she?

ERIKE
Fragile yet strong, shrouded in mystery.

PLAYERS
Open yet coy, fiercely independent.

ERIKE
What kind of person is she?

ERIKE
Delicate, clinging, a cascade of tears.

PLAYERS
Decisive, untamed, intensely rational.

ERIKE
What kind of person is she?

ERIKE
Ice and fire.
Love and hate.

ERIKE/REPORTER (together)
Sorrow and joy, trust and doubt, hope and despair!

ERIKE/REPORTER (together)
All irreconcilable elements，
find perfect balance within her/me,
merging flawlessly,
hitting every note just right,
every measure perfectly placed.

ERIKE
I see a person I could never be.
I'm drawn onto this labyrinthine stage,
content to play a comical,
secondary role.

FENG
Wine is ready. Let me drink a few more cups with you.

ERIKE
Wine is ready, yes, wine is ready.

Let me drink a few more cups with you.

FENG walks to ERIKE. They drink to each other from a distance, with staggered movements.
FENG puts Yu Ji's outer costume on ERIKE.

FENG
You, please look into my eyes again.

ERIKE
Let me look into your eyes again.

FENG
Look into my labyrinthine eyes.

ERIKE
Your swirling eyes.
Your brown, profound eyes that pierce me,
that devour my very soul.

ERIKE/FENG (together)
The eyes of a mirror.
The eyes of the victor.

REPORTER
The eyes of the judge and clarity.

ERIKE
I confess, I surrender.
I —— love you.

THE END.