Alice in Wonderland (Opera)
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| Title: | Alice in Wonderland |
| Shape: | Opera in eight scenes |
| Original language: | English |
| Music: | Unsuk Chin |
| Libretto : | David Henry Hwang and Unsuk Chin |
| Literary source: | Lewis Carroll : Alice in Wonderland |
| Premiere: | June 30, 2007 |
| Place of premiere: | Bavarian State Opera Munich |
| Playing time: | about 2 hours |
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Alice in Wonderland is an opera by Unsuk Chin , based on the book of the same name by Lewis Carroll . The libretto is by David Henry Hwang and the composer.
The world premiere of the work was opened at the Munich Opera Festival on June 30, 2007 and took place at the Bavarian State Opera under the direction of Kent Nagano . The director was Achim Freyer , who was also responsible for stage design and lighting , and Nina Weitzner was responsible for masks and puppets . The title role was played by Sally Matthews ; Other singers included Dame Gwyneth Jones and Dietrich Henschel .
As a kind of preliminary study, the song cycle snagS & Snarls for soprano and orchestra was commissioned by the Los Angeles Opera in 2004 .
Work description
As far as the plot is concerned, the librettists remain true to the text. The prologue and epilogue are an exception . As dream scenes, these are removed from the real sphere of life that prevails at the beginning and end of Carroll's book.
In Lewis Carroll's stories, Chin is less fascinated by the fairy tale theme - “it would be an illusion to want to see fairy tales in them” - than by the “twisted logic underlying a 'different' physical law”. Chin points out that she did not discover Alice as a child, but as an adult - through reading Douglas R. Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach in which Alice plays an important role.
In certain scenes a stylistic pluralism is expressed that is otherwise rarely found in Chin's music. Unsuk Chin points out that these - in correspondence with Lewis Carroll's puns and corruptions - are musical parodies, and that she has chosen a tonal language for the opera that differs from her other works, since the main role is a child.
The classical instruments are extended by a large percussion apparatus , mandolin and other unusual instruments as well as electronics. The vocal and instrumental parts make high virtuoso demands on singers and orchestra.
The composer justifies the added dream scenes with the fact that she discovered a strong relationship with her dreams in the Alice stories, which she describes as "a much more existential experience than anything I have experienced in everyday life" and as an essential stimulus for her compositional work . Lewis Carroll's nonsense is analyzed by her as an attempt to "describe a complex dream state with words", whereby "inevitably what we call 'nonsense', since our language is subject to a completely different logic".
Alice in Wonderland was voted the world premiere of the year in the international critics' survey by Opernwelt magazine .
Scenes
- Scene 1: Dream I.
- Scene 2: The pond of tears
- Scene 3: In the white rabbit's house
- Interlude 1: Advice from a caterpillar
- Scene 4: Piglet and pepper in the Duchess's house
- Scene 5: Crazy tea party
- Scene 6: The croquet field
- Interlude 2
- Scene 7: Trial or Who Stole the Cakes?
- Finale: Dream II
orchestra
- Two flutes (I = piccolo, II = piccolo / alto flute / piston flute), two oboes (II = English horn), two clarinets (II = Eb clarinet, bass clarinet), two bassoons (II = contrabassoon)
- Two horns, three trumpets, two trombones, tuba
- Four drummers
- Harp, mandolin, piano (also celesta and harpsichord)
- Sampler
- Strings (min. Eight first violins, eight second violins, six violas, four cellos, three double basses with five strings)
- On stage: bass clarinet, optional trash can with kitchen utensils for theater effects
Press reviews
"In fact, Chin's first opera is a masterpiece that ties in directly with Ravel's magical opera" L'enfant et les sortilèges ": Like Ravel, Chin writes extremely fine-sounding, often chamber music, and has no inhibitions about using the most varied of styles: The sewing machine baroque of the Five -O'-clock scene or the caterpillar's six-minute bass clarinet solo. (...) One of the most important contemporary operas (...) "
“Chin's sound world is seductively cavernous, suggesting not only the magical rabbit hole down which Alice tumbles but also the psychological crevasses beneath the surface of Carroll's writing… (…) Chin (…) has a knack for binding together seemingly irreconcilable extremes. (...) The wondrous thing is how effortlessly Chin changes pace, from delicacy to grotesquerie, from cutesiness to dementia. Everything flows organically. "
"A finely woven score that is rampant with sound inventions and merges colors and scents from music history in many ways."
“The music testifies to the outstanding sound fantasy of the composer, who has left the narrow limits of avant-garde music behind. What she has noted is of the finest and most powerful in a never-ending musical plasticity ... Chin's synaesthetic sense of color and aroma of the music is phenomenal, as is her feeling for shimmering increases, for instrumental surprises and virtuoso special interludes, which time and again with individual characters in the story are linked. "
Image carrier
- Unsuk Chin: Alice in Wonderland . Bavarian State Opera. Unitel Classica, 2008.
literature
- Lewis Carroll : Alice in Wonderland and Alice Behind the Looking Glass (OT: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass ). (Anniversary edition.) Translated from the English by Christian Enzensberger . With illustrations by John Tenniel . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-458-34268-0 .
Web links
- Alice in Wonderland at Boosey & Hawkes (partly in English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Program book for the production of "Alice in Wonderland" in the Bavarian State Opera, 2007
- ↑ Helmut Rohm: A game of light and colors - the composer Unsuk Chin [broadcast on Bayern4 Klassik, June 3, 2008, May 22nd]
- ^ Opernwelt: Oper 2007 - the yearbook. Special issue 2007.
- ↑ RONDO - Reviews
- ^ Looking-glass Opera: The New Yorker
- ↑ Classic magazine FONO FORUM 2008/7
- ↑ Wolfgang Schreiber: Archaic Child's Dream. Opera World, 8/2007