Alice in Wonderland, Barbican Hall - opera review: Unsuk Chin’s score is dazzling

Korean composer Unsuk Chin's new production of Alice in Wonderland is an answer to those who question the point of Lewis Carroll's classic
Never as innocent as it looked: this production of Alice in Wonderland is a very adult fantasy
Barry Millington30 March 2015

The Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s opera Alice in Wonderland might seem to be the answer for those of us who have never quite seen the point of Lewis Carroll’s classic. What Chin has done, with librettist David Henry Hwang and director and designer Netia Jones, is to highlight the cultural and psychological context of the original, referencing Darwin, Freud and much more. The absurdities of the Mad Hatter (Dietrich Henschel) and Queen of Hearts (Jane Henschel) prefigure Kafka and Ionesco in a series of tableaux as sinister as they are comic.

Chin’s dazzling score, skilfully reduced here by Lloyd Moore, incorporates a virtuoso cantilena for the inanely grinning Cheshire Cat (Marie Arnet), a fearsomely taxing bass clarinet solo (played with aplomb by Katherine Lacy) for the Caterpillar scene, and a harmonica solo with part-writing for boys’ voices (Tiffin Boys’ Choir) for the Mock Turtle’s sad soup song.

Are the Mad Hatter’s penchant for bondage and self-flagellation hinting at Carroll’s questionable closet preferences? In any case this was a wonderfully macabre meditation on time, delivered in style by Henschel. The often stratospheric writing of the part of Alice was dispatched admirably by Rachele Gilmore. Andrew Watts excelled as both White Rabbit and March Hare.

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Jones’ inspired video projections draw on Ralph Steadman’s celebrated illustrations and her costumes and set designs demonstrate no less invention.

Baldur Brönnimann conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a well-prepared performance.

Alice in Wonderland was never as innocent as it looked, but this remarkable collaborative effort adds a whole new dimension to a very adult fantasy.

To be broadcast by R3 on Jul 11

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