SANTA FE, N.M.—A story at once preposterous and all too real propels the new opera “M. Butterfly.” But where is the music that can propel the thoughts, the moods, the innermost personalities of the players?

Composer Huang Ruo’s rugged score reproduced all the conflicts and disruptions in the libretto. But where is the music to let the singers expound, philosophize, emote and breathe? So much work, yet so aloof remain the protagonists.

This story of multiple enigmas is based on fact. In a courtroom trial involving espionage charges it came out that in the years-long affair between a French diplomat and an alluring singer in China involved not a woman but another man, a gender deception of which the diplomat was blissfully unaware all that time. The singer had even brought forth a child that he had allegedly fathered, hoodwinking him all the way. How he could have been deceived all that time by the “shy” singer was never clarified.

The denouement comes in Song’s proving his gender by stripping completely before Gallimard, taunting the Westerner for his antiquated views of precious Asian women. The opera takes the social critique a step further, with a dual gender-reversal in which the man becomes the Butterfly similar to the Puccini heroine and takes on, in a bit of insanity, the guise of a female performer in an old Asian format prior to the tragic Puccinesque ending. For many, it’s an uncomfortable squirmy story. But it’s real for the most part.

Though the singer named Song is the eye-catcher here, the opera really belongs to the duped diplomat Gallimard. He not only becomes the laughing stock of all France but also a man with a career ruined by pillow talk when in a second deception Song proves to be a Communist Chinese spy.

Baritone Mark Stone plays Gallimard forcefully and plausibly in one exhausting scene after the other. As played by Kangmin Justin Kim, Song is a countertenor with much stamina but a taut voice having little poetic dimension.

The complex multi-scene production under Director James Robinson is immensely colorful, ranging from the choruses of urbane Parisian sophisticates to the phalanxes of the Red Guards and performers remembered from the Maoist era. With a Western orchestra augmented by Chinese percussion, conductor Carolyn Kuan was dynamic, projecting the world-premiere score with drama and panache.

Even if never revived in future seasons here, “M. Butterfly” proved to be an impact work, echoing the grand success of David Henry Hwang’s eponymous award-winning stage play of 2008. If the story weren’t true, no one would ever believe it.

HUANG RUO’s ‘M. BUTTERFLY,’ a world-premiere in English at Santa Fe (NM) Opera, heard Aug. 12. Three acts, three hours, one intermission. To be repeated Aug. 18, 24. For SFO info: (505) 986-5900 or go online, www.santafeopera.org.