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| The question from the Chinese-born composer Huang Ruo came out of the blue: Would David Henry Hwang, the American playwright, consider adapting his Broadway hit “M. Butterfly” for the opera stage? |
| 出生在中国的作曲家黄若突然提出了这样一个问题：美国剧作家黄哲伦是否会考虑将他的百老汇大热作品《蝴蝶君》(M. Butterfly)改编为歌剧？ |
| It was 2013, and Huang, who had worked with Hwang on an Off Broadway revival of “The Dance and the Railroad,” was eager to collaborate again. The playwright agreed, and in late July, almost a decade after their first conversation, “M. Butterfly” had its premiere at Santa Fe Opera. |
| 那是2013年的事，黄若与黄哲伦为外百老汇重排《舞蹈与铁路》(The Dance and The Railroad)，前者渴望与后者再次合作。黄哲伦对此表示同意。今年7月下旬，在二人第一次谈起这次合作将近10年后，《蝴蝶君》在圣达菲歌剧院首演。 |
| Like the play, the opera tells the story of René Gallimard, a civil servant at the French embassy in Beijing, who falls in love with Song Liling, a Chinese opera singer who seems to be the ideal woman. Gallimard eventually discovers that Song has been a man — and a spy — all along. |
| 与舞台剧一样，这部歌剧讲述了法国驻北京大使馆的公务员勒内·加利马尔与京剧演员宋丽玲相爱的故事，她似乎是个理想中的女人。加利马尔最后发现，宋丽玲一直是个男人，而且是间谍。 |
| “M. Butterfly” upends Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” which tells the story of Cio-Cio-San, a betrayed young geisha, waiting in vain for the return of Pinkerton, her American husband. It gives power to Asian characters instead of Westerners, and the fluidity in gender roles counters sexist tropes in Puccini’s opera. |
| 《蝴蝶君》是对普契尼《蝴蝶夫人》的颠覆，后者讲述一个遭背叛的年轻艺妓巧巧桑徒然等待美国丈夫平克顿归来的故事。《蝴蝶君》给亚洲角色而非西方人赋予了力量，性别角色的流动性也反击了普契尼歌剧中的性别歧视手法。 |
| In an interview from Santa Fe, Huang said the discussions of race, gender and power in “M. Butterfly,” which runs through Aug. 24, spoke to the present moment, more than three decades after the play’s premiere. He also talked about his early immersion in Chinese opera, the impact of the pandemic on the production and Asian representation in the arts. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. |
| 《蝴蝶君》的档期将持续到8月24日，在圣达菲接受采访时，黄若说，在首演30多年后，该剧对种族、性别和权力的讨论是对当下的一种回应。他还谈到了自己早期沉浸在中国戏曲中的经历，疫情对该剧的影响，以及亚裔在艺术中的呈现。以下是经过编辑的谈话节选。 |
| Tell me about your first encounter with the play “M. Butterfly.” |
| 说说你第一次接触舞台剧《蝴蝶君》的经历。 |
| When I was at Oberlin, in my college days, the first play that I saw in America was “M. Butterfly.” It left a very deep impact. I knew Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” the opera, but I did not know “M. Butterfly.” I thought it was a misspelling. I went in expecting to see “Madama Butterfly” but walked out with a totally opposite and different story. |
| 当我还在欧柏林学院的时候，我在美国看的第一部舞台剧就是《蝴蝶君》。它给我带来了非常深刻的冲击。我知道普契尼的歌剧《蝴蝶夫人》，但我不知道《蝴蝶君》。我还以为是拼写错误呢。我进去的时候期待看到《蝴蝶夫人》，但走出来的时候却得到了一个完全相反、截然不同的故事。 |
| Why turn the play, which was successful on Broadway and inspired a 1993 movie, into an opera? |
| 这部舞台剧在百老汇大获成功，1993年还被改编成电影，为什么要把它改编成歌剧呢？ |
| I saw several versions of the play, and I often felt it needed to be told in musical form because it was so related to Puccini and to the reversal of “Madama Butterfly.” I felt in opera I could freely integrate — to twist and to turn, to create all the drama with the music. Some plays should never be touched or turned into opera, but I felt this was one of the rare cases where it could work. |
| 我看过这部剧的几个版本，我经常觉得它需要用音乐的形式来讲述，因为它与普契尼和对《蝴蝶夫人》的反转有着很大的关系。我觉得在歌剧里，我可以自由地融入——去扭转、去变化，用音乐来创造所有的戏剧性。有些舞台剧永远不应该被改编或者改成歌剧，但我觉得《蝴蝶君》是极少数可以成功的案例之一。 |
| You grew up on Hainan island, the southernmost edge of China, immersed in traditional Chinese opera and other music. What was that like? |
| 你在中国最南端的海南岛长大，沉浸在中国传统戏曲和其他音乐里是一种什么样的感觉？ |
| In every village in Hainan, there is a communal open-air space, like a square. People would bring their clothes during the day to dry under the burning sun or put the rice out to dry. At night, people would sit there, the guys would take their shirts off, to get cool and to fall asleep. |
| 在海南的每个村庄都有一个公共的露天空间，就像一个广场。白天，人们把衣服拿来，放在烈日下晾晒，或者在这里晒稻谷。晚上大家会坐在那里，男人们会打赤膊，为了凉快、好睡觉。 |
| Occasionally there were Hainanese opera troupes that came to the village to perform. And at that moment, the open square became an improvised theater. Every family would bring their own food and chairs. And my grandmother would take me to sit there, to see opera. |
| 偶尔，海南的戏曲团会来村里演出。那时候，空旷的广场就变成了临时剧场。每家人都会带着食物和椅子前来。我祖母会带我坐在那里看戏。 |
| How did those early experiences inform your artistic philosophy? |
| 这些早期经历对你的艺术哲学有什么样的影响？ |
| My grandmother was never sent to school because her family was poor and she was a woman. But she got her education through watching opera. Opera was for everybody: men and women, the elderly and the young. She learned all these stories and moral lessons, and she taught me those as well. |
| 我的祖母从来没有上过学，因为家里穷，而且她是女人。但她是通过看戏受教育的。戏剧是为所有人服务的：男人和女人，老人和年轻人。她学到了戏里的故事和道德观念，还把这些东西教给了我。 |
| How did the story of “Madama Butterfly” influence your approach? |
| 《蝴蝶夫人》的故事对你的创作有什么影响？ |
| Puccini’s opera shows a submissive, young Asian woman who will do everything — even change her faith — to be put in a cage, to serve as someone’s wife and even bear a child. And it shows her foolishly wanting him to come back, only to be abandoned and to have her only child, her only hope, brutally taken away. Pinkerton was portrayed by Puccini as this white man who doesn’t know or respect Eastern traditions or culture, and just abuses Cio-Cio-San, and takes advantage of her, both physically and psychologically. |
| 普契尼的歌剧展现了一个顺从的年轻亚裔女人，她愿意做任何事情——甚至改变自己的信仰——被关在笼子里，做别人的妻子，甚至生孩子。剧中展现了她愚蠢地希望男人回来，结果却遭到抛弃，她唯一的孩子、唯一的希望也被残忍地夺走。普契尼把平克顿塑造成一个不了解也不尊重东方传统和文化的白人，只是从身体上和心理上虐待和利用巧巧桑。 |
| The big picture is this kind of imbalance between East and West, and the smaller picture is the interplay of male and female, and Asians being treated as subhuman. That is entirely reversed in “M. Butterfly.” |
| 大背景是东西方之间的不平衡，小背景是男性和女性之间的相互作用，而且亚裔被视为次等人。这在《蝴蝶君》里是完全相反的。 |
| Can you give an example of how Puccini’s music influenced the score of “M. Butterfly”? |
| 能否举例说明普契尼的音乐是如何影响《蝴蝶君》的作曲的？ |
| The overture of “Madama Butterfly” is very fast and energetic, in a minor key, that sounds very Western. I turned the overture upside down. I used the Puccini motif, and I reversed it. I made it quasi-pentatonic, to make it more Eastern. And then I have an opera gong, crash cymbal and all these instruments go along with it. So it’s quite unrecognizable if you don’t know the Puccini well, but I felt that in that way it’s related to the Puccini, and it also became new, just like “M. Butterfly” itself. |
| 《蝴蝶夫人》的序曲非常快，充满活力，以小调谱写，听起来很西方。我对其进行了反转。我使用了普契尼的母题，然后将它反过来。我把它变成了准五声音阶，让它听上去更东方。我还用了京剧里的锣、铙钹等乐器来配合。所以如果不是很了解普契尼，会觉得相当面目全非，但我觉得，这样一来，它既和普契尼有关系，又成为新的作品，就像《蝴蝶君》本身。 |
| The premiere of “M. Butterfly” was delayed for two years because of the pandemic. How does it feel to open in this moment? |
| 《蝴蝶君》因为疫情而被推迟了两年。此刻开演的感觉如何？ |
| It’s even more timely now, because of the pandemic and the rise of anti-Asian hate. Asian Americans are again being treated with subhuman stereotypes and racial hate. They’re being treated as others, not as equals. With “M. Butterfly,” we are showing people this is the history of humanity — that this is not just an exotic story happening in the past. |
| 由于疫情和反亚裔仇恨的兴起，现在是一个更加合适的时机。亚裔美国人再次遭受低人一等的刻板印象和种族仇恨。他们被视为外人，而不被平等对待。随着《蝴蝶君》的上演，我们正在向人们展示这是人性的历史——这不仅仅是过去发生的异国故事。 |
| What has it been like witnessing the spike in hate directed toward Asians in the United States, particularly in New York City, your longtime home? |
| 在美国，尤其是在你长期居住的纽约市，目睹针对亚裔的仇恨激增是什么感觉？ |
| You just don’t know when and where you might get attacked. For example, I took my kids out biking after the severe attack on a Filipino woman in Times Square last year. I basically disguised them, and disguised myself, so we all had masks, and they had helmets on, and I had a hat, so we all looked less Asian. That was the first time I felt I had to disguise myself in America. |
| 你真的不知道何时何地会受到攻击。例如，去年我带着孩子们出去骑自行车，在那之前，一名菲律宾女子在时报广场遭到了严重袭击。我把他们差不多伪装起来，也把自己伪装起来，我们都戴着口罩，他们戴着头盔，我戴着帽子，所以我们看起来都不那么像亚裔。那是我第一次觉得我必须在美国伪装自己。 |
| Normally Asians and Asian Americans want to be seen and heard. We have been complaining for a long time that we are invisible. But that was the moment that I wanted to be invisible. I did not want to be seen or identified. Is that normal? Is that real? I don’t think that’s normal, but that felt so real at that moment. |
| 通常，亚洲人和亚裔美国人希望被看到和听到。我们总在抱怨我们是隐形人。但那一刻，我想要隐形。我不想被看到或被认成亚裔。这正常吗？这真实吗？我认为这很不正常，但那一刻感觉非常真实。 |
| What do you want audiences to take away from “M. Butterfly”? |
| 你希望观众从《蝴蝶君》得到什么？ |
| 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. |
| 我希望人们了解这个故事，同时也提出问题。对我来说，这是歌剧所能做的最好的事情：不是提供答案，而是提出问题。并且让观众思考自己的背景和人生经历。 |
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