When Butterfly Lovers Meet Swan Lake

By Dato' Danny Goon

Tadpoles transform into frogs. Caterpillars undergo a complete transformation into butterflies. Do Butterfly Lovers turn into Swans? A puerile question, perhaps. And if you attended PPO's performance, 'Romances', at SXI on 28 September 2025, the answer would certainly be obvious.

A three-piece programme led by Ng Chong Yen as Conductor, the Orchestra launched the afternoon's proceedings with Liu Tingyu's Su San Suite, followed by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang's The Butterfly Lovers' Violin Concerto featuring Yvonne Lee as soloist, before taking on Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake Suite, Op. 20a. Fittingly, the Guest of Honour that afternoon was Madam Ding Qiao, the Acting Consul-General of the People's Republic of China's Consulate General in Penang.

The Su San Suite is an adaptation from the Peking Opera's Yu Tang Chun. It skillfully blends Peking Opera's percussion with Western orchestral music, vividly portraying the tragic figure of Su San in feudal society. The melody is characterised by poignant beauty and solemnity, while the finale is accompanied by the stirring Peking Opera andante rhythm of gongs, drums, bangzi and castanets. The percussion section led by Ivan Choo certainly came into its own during the rousing climax.

Both the Butterfly Lovers and Swan Lake are iconic love stories told through music and dance. Yet they come from very different artistic traditions and cultural roots. Swan Lake, set in Russia in the 1870's, is a staple of Western classical ballet rooted in European fairy tales and romanticism. Butterfly Lovers is more modern, being a concerto penned in 1959. But the legend behind it is ancient Chinese set in the Eastern Jin dynasty (266-420 AD), and is often called the Chinese Romeo and Juliet. It is expressed through traditional melodies fused with Western symphonic structures.

Both are love stories with tragic endings.

Prince Siegfried falls in love with Odette, a princess cursed to be a swan by day. Odile is the Black Swan, with love struggling against deception. The central theme is eternal love transcending betrayal or death, and ends with a redemptive, bittersweet feeling.

Zhu Yingtai is the only daughter of a wealthy family and though traditionally discouraged from taking up scholarly pursuits, she manages to convince her father to allow her to attend classes disguised as a man. She meets Liang Shanbo during classes and gradually falls for him, while the bookworm Liang fails to notice she is a woman. Zhu receives a letter directing her to return home as soon as possible, and Liang accompanies her on part of the journey home, during which she creatively tells him she has a sister which she will matchmake for him. When Liang finally visits Zhu, he discovers she is actually a woman and they vow never to part, only to find out that her father has arranged for Zhu to marry a wealthy merchant. Liang is heartbroken, and his health deteriorates until he passes away. On the day of Zhu's marriage, her entourage passes by Liang's grave and in drama symptomatic of the genre, thunder and lightning descends, opening up the grave enough for Zhu to throw herself in. Their spirits emerge in the form of a pair of butterflies and fly away, never to be separated again.

How all these play out musically, you have to be there to see for yourself! Suffice to say, the PPO captured in Swan Lake, the lush, dramatic Romantic-era orchestration symbolic of the Swans' purity, transformation and the tension between light (Odette) and dark (Odile). Butterfly Lovers showcases the solo violin as representative of Zhu, while the orchestra conveys dialogue and emotion, with Chinese melodies featuring fate, loyalty and cultural values of sacrifice.

Kudos to soloist Yvonne Lee for captivating her audience so vividly they responded with thunderous applause and demands for an encore. Miss Lee sportingly obliged with The Swan by Saint-Saens. She was ably supported by Bryan Lee on the Harp.

The audience responded to Swan Lake with loud appreciation. Maestro Choong Yen returned to the podium and led the PPO through a Chinese folk song, the popular Jasmine Flower, an orchestral arrangement by Li Wen Ping. That brought our Special Guest to her feet again. Certainly, an afternoon to be remembered.