What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning - and a child's more important than a joke, I hopeThrough the Looking Glass. Chapter 9
Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, along with his other non-academic writings (as an academic and under his real name, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, he published mathematics and logic treatises) seemed to escaped operatic settings until quite recently. A 'Musical Dream Play' appeared as early as 1888 but apart from small scaled adaptations for school and amateur performance major English composers left the stories alone (if they had concerned a boy instead of a girl would Benjamin Britten have written something?).
The American composer David Del Tredici has made several instrumental and orchestral settings from various Wonderland texts but as far operas go Martin and Peter Wesley-Smith's 1986 psychological choral fantasy Boojum! comes close to being the first. Tom Waits provided songs and music for what sounds like a fascinating 2002 stage adaptation by Robert Wilson called Alice (hint-hint Melbourne Festival). The most notable is Unsuk Chin's 2007 Alice in Wonderland, combining both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, a major operatic work premiered at the Munich Opera Festival. Hard on the heels of the Munich Alice comes this odd little one act opera by Alan John and Andrew Upton that takes Through the Looking Glass as the basis for an imagined account of how Carroll, through his stories and, particularly his notorious photographs of the ten year old Alice, created a myth out of the child that effects her until the end of her life. Trapped forever as 'the girl who was Alice in Wonderland' Liddell seems to be in good company. Christopher Robin Milne spent the remainder of his long life answering enquiries as to whether he really had a teddy called Pooh or struck deals with speckled hens letting them touch the scab on his knee in return for an egg. The adult Alice spent a lot of time on the lecture circuit talking about her experience as 'Alice in Wonderland'. One wonders what the substance of lectures was like or how much she recalled, or was willing to reveal, about the brief time she actually knew the man as a child or from the once only meeting with him as an adult.
In Upton and Johns' opera the return to Wonderland through a now shattered looking glass suggests the older Alice returning (regressing?) to the state of childhood to address whatever may have taken place between her and Carroll (mysteriously Carroll's diaries for the years when he was 'intimate' with Alice and her family have vanished). Upton's impetus for the libretto was the photograph Carroll made of the ten-year-old Alice fixing the world's visual image of her permanently as the precocious child as much as the two books did. The Alice books were something of a revolution in children's literature featuring, instead of a helpless child brutalised by ghosts, ghouls and goblins, an intrepid and fearless young girl. The Alice books are a kind of parallel to British colonialism - fearlessly adventuring into foreign lands, indifferent to local customs or logic - of the time. Alice may also be a convergence of childish innocence with the applied logic of Dodgson's mathematician's 's mind.
In Upton and Johns' opera the return to Wonderland through a now shattered looking glass suggests the older Alice returning (regressing?) to the state of childhood to address whatever may have taken place between her and Carroll (mysteriously Carroll's diaries for the years when he was 'intimate' with Alice and her family have vanished). Upton's impetus for the libretto was the photograph Carroll made of the ten-year-old Alice fixing the world's visual image of her permanently as the precocious child as much as the two books did. The Alice books were something of a revolution in children's literature featuring, instead of a helpless child brutalised by ghosts, ghouls and goblins, an intrepid and fearless young girl. The Alice books are a kind of parallel to British colonialism - fearlessly adventuring into foreign lands, indifferent to local customs or logic - of the time. Alice may also be a convergence of childish innocence with the applied logic of Dodgson's mathematician's 's mind.
Interestingly at the centre of the work Alice encounters the White Queen (Margaret Haggart) in the temporally inverted episode when the Queen begins to shout, her finger starts bleeding and then she pricks said digit on her shawl pin. This scene, in the context of an adult processing backward through her injury to the time in her childhood when it was caused, is a powerful metaphor.
As told the story very confusing (however Malthouse thoughtfully have made the libretto available to read at their web page). It opens with prologue where the older Alice (Dimity Shepherd) enters from the audience, dressed in white slacks and natty head scarf like a bright young thing out of Salad Days and carrying two suitcases. She is either embarking on or returning from a journey and as she approaches the stage is confronted by a dream image of young Alice's (nothing like the more famous Alice of John Tenniel's illustrations but dressed rather like Japanese schoolgirls). The ensemble enter manipulating shards of mirror while warning her to "beware the manxome foe", a reference to the poem Jabberwocky from the Through the Looking Glass as though returning to Wonderland will not so easy. In the following 12 scenes Upton takes episodes from the story and combines them with imagined meetings between Alice and Carroll (David Hobson). These are among the most effective. In one Upton and John refer back to the fateful boating trip where the Wonderland story was first told. Theatrically it is quite beautiful. John has set the words to a barcarole for Carroll and Alice with beautifully harmonised contributions from knitting shop-keeper sheep (Suzanne Johnston).
As a theatre composer John can get right down to business in a matter of seconds and create the atmosphere of time, place and mood (an excellent CD of some of musical scene painting and his very personal ability to write using very unusual combinations of instruments is well worth hearing). For Through the Looking Glass has written for a small ensemble, harp, piano, harmonium and a well stocked percussion section (no woodwind or horn or trumpet or stringed instrument). Most of the time the instruments are all playing at the same time and the tempos, even in the barcarole the tempos are on the fast side. The White Queen's finger-pricking scene was realised by director Michael Kantor with what seemed a deliberate dramatic focus. Johns' vocal writing for that scene was also highly effective. At other times the music was sadly faceless, the individuality of the instruments or the melodies rarely making themselves known. When in the 'pudding' episode where the sound of beating drums coming from nowhere but nearly deafening Alice, for example, despite the extensive percussion section, the actual drumming (in the libretto growing "to a deafening climax") hardly overpowering and over in seconds. A few musical interludes or some more meditative sections would have been welcome and made more of the transitions from one scene to the next. The transition music that was most effective were the segues into the barcarole scene or the forest scene (heralded, like the transition into the garden scene of Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges with a slide whistle). Although quoted often Jabberwocky or the other songs in Carroll's story are not set as arias and the scenes themselves are short. Although John uses very Victorian instruments harp, piano and especially harmonium he never writes anything in a 19th century sounding style, apart from a quick burst of (the 18th century) Rule Britannia as he has done in his theatre scores to evoke a time and place. Audiences expecting or hoping for a 'traditional' melodic style may be as disappointed by the music as they may be by the opera not being an straightforward adaptation of the book. Despite being a limited range of instruments they are well used throughout, the harmonium at times even being used to create a woodwind sound. The singing is first rate. The principals are all classically trained singers and are discreetly miked. Every word of the text is clearly sung, John has mostly favoured setting the text as one note per syllable. The characters are all divided between standard opera voices; soprano, tenor, mezzo, baritone, plus three child trebles. Despite being a company more concerned with exploiting younger voices the singers here are all senior artists. As the White Queen, particularly in the stark finger pricking scene, Haggart creates the sort of character vignette widely experienced singers like Martha Mödl used to provide in classic and contemporary operas in their later stage careers (Gwyneth Jones, interestingly sang the Queen in the Munich Alice). Mercifully the singers avoided most of the 'mugging' that inexplicably provokes laughs from opera audiences, particularly when viewing new or unfamiliar work.
Unhelpfully, the programme notes give very little preparation for seeing and hearing the opera by giving little in the way of background detail about Carroll and most importantly Alice Liddell herself. Librettist Upton notes a meeting between Carroll and the adult Alice while the composer expresses surprise that he was asked to write it rather than talk about his choice of instruments and composition style. The conductor Richard Gill makes some useful comments in a recent interview in The Australian. In his note director Michael Kantor implies that we know 'bits' of the controversy, but does mention the fact that in 1863 Carroll broke all contact with Liddel and her family a year after he made up the story to entertain her and her sisters on the rowing trip.
It would be fascinating to speculate on the relationship particularly in the way Carroll's photographs depict a malleable beggar girl compared with the haughty petite bourgeois child in the stories (unconcerned about being in a strange place, talking back to kings and queens and endlessly complaining to and about the tradespeople that populate the two Alice books). The staging is very good, lavish even. Peter Corrigan's set is dominated by a checkered wall and floor that is fleeting changed into a chess board referring to the chess moves that Alice follows through the original story. Locations are supported by projections of Victorian landscapes, often of erupting volcanoes. At one point the cover a 1970s Penguin Books edition of Robert Graves' Goodbye to all That is projected. Liddell lost two of her three sons in World War One, perhaps that loss of children is considered a successor to the original trauma of losing her own 'child' to Carroll. Through the Looking Glass as a 'reflection' of the relationship between Carroll and Liddell remains an unsolved literary mystery but like Carroll's Alice stories will be open to as many and constant interpretations. At less than 70 minutes it could be easily accommodated on a singe CD and preserved as a record of the wide ranging activities on Victoria's industrious opera company.
Postscript: With the furore now breaking over the Bill Henson exhibition, the appearance of this opera focusing on an historical account of a professional photographer (Carroll exhibited and published his photographic work) producing daring daguerreotypes of a child seems rather timely, even spooky.
Through the Looking Glass (2008) Opera in a prologue and 12 scenes
Commissioned by Malthouse and jointly presented with Victorian Opera
Music - Alan John
Libretto - Andrew Upton
Alice - Dimity Shepherd
Lewis Carroll / The Train Driver / Humpty Dumpty / White Knight - David Hobson
Tiger Lily / Passenger / The White Queen / Pudding - Maragret Haggart
Rose / Red Queen / Passenger / Sheep / Unicorn - Suzanne Johnston
Violet / Passenger / Tweedledee / White King - Kanen Breen
Daisy / Guard / Tweedledum / Mutton - Gary Rowley
Three Young Alices / Three Fawns - Stephanie Pidcock, Jacqueline Bathman and Dana Hehir alternating with Emilia Bertolini, Francesca Côdd and Hayley Heath
Conductor - Richard Gill
Musicians: Nicholas Carter (harmonium), Timothy Hook (percussion), David McSkimmimg (piano), Delyth Stafford (harp)
Director - Michael Kantor
Dramaturge - Maryanne Lynch
Set, costume and puppet design - Peter Corrigan
Lighting Design - Paul Jackson
Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse
17 - 31 May 2008
65 minutes (no interval)
As told the story very confusing (however Malthouse thoughtfully have made the libretto available to read at their web page). It opens with prologue where the older Alice (Dimity Shepherd) enters from the audience, dressed in white slacks and natty head scarf like a bright young thing out of Salad Days and carrying two suitcases. She is either embarking on or returning from a journey and as she approaches the stage is confronted by a dream image of young Alice's (nothing like the more famous Alice of John Tenniel's illustrations but dressed rather like Japanese schoolgirls). The ensemble enter manipulating shards of mirror while warning her to "beware the manxome foe", a reference to the poem Jabberwocky from the Through the Looking Glass as though returning to Wonderland will not so easy. In the following 12 scenes Upton takes episodes from the story and combines them with imagined meetings between Alice and Carroll (David Hobson). These are among the most effective. In one Upton and John refer back to the fateful boating trip where the Wonderland story was first told. Theatrically it is quite beautiful. John has set the words to a barcarole for Carroll and Alice with beautifully harmonised contributions from knitting shop-keeper sheep (Suzanne Johnston).
As a theatre composer John can get right down to business in a matter of seconds and create the atmosphere of time, place and mood (an excellent CD of some of musical scene painting and his very personal ability to write using very unusual combinations of instruments is well worth hearing). For Through the Looking Glass has written for a small ensemble, harp, piano, harmonium and a well stocked percussion section (no woodwind or horn or trumpet or stringed instrument). Most of the time the instruments are all playing at the same time and the tempos, even in the barcarole the tempos are on the fast side. The White Queen's finger-pricking scene was realised by director Michael Kantor with what seemed a deliberate dramatic focus. Johns' vocal writing for that scene was also highly effective. At other times the music was sadly faceless, the individuality of the instruments or the melodies rarely making themselves known. When in the 'pudding' episode where the sound of beating drums coming from nowhere but nearly deafening Alice, for example, despite the extensive percussion section, the actual drumming (in the libretto growing "to a deafening climax") hardly overpowering and over in seconds. A few musical interludes or some more meditative sections would have been welcome and made more of the transitions from one scene to the next. The transition music that was most effective were the segues into the barcarole scene or the forest scene (heralded, like the transition into the garden scene of Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges with a slide whistle). Although quoted often Jabberwocky or the other songs in Carroll's story are not set as arias and the scenes themselves are short. Although John uses very Victorian instruments harp, piano and especially harmonium he never writes anything in a 19th century sounding style, apart from a quick burst of (the 18th century) Rule Britannia as he has done in his theatre scores to evoke a time and place. Audiences expecting or hoping for a 'traditional' melodic style may be as disappointed by the music as they may be by the opera not being an straightforward adaptation of the book. Despite being a limited range of instruments they are well used throughout, the harmonium at times even being used to create a woodwind sound. The singing is first rate. The principals are all classically trained singers and are discreetly miked. Every word of the text is clearly sung, John has mostly favoured setting the text as one note per syllable. The characters are all divided between standard opera voices; soprano, tenor, mezzo, baritone, plus three child trebles. Despite being a company more concerned with exploiting younger voices the singers here are all senior artists. As the White Queen, particularly in the stark finger pricking scene, Haggart creates the sort of character vignette widely experienced singers like Martha Mödl used to provide in classic and contemporary operas in their later stage careers (Gwyneth Jones, interestingly sang the Queen in the Munich Alice). Mercifully the singers avoided most of the 'mugging' that inexplicably provokes laughs from opera audiences, particularly when viewing new or unfamiliar work.
Unhelpfully, the programme notes give very little preparation for seeing and hearing the opera by giving little in the way of background detail about Carroll and most importantly Alice Liddell herself. Librettist Upton notes a meeting between Carroll and the adult Alice while the composer expresses surprise that he was asked to write it rather than talk about his choice of instruments and composition style. The conductor Richard Gill makes some useful comments in a recent interview in The Australian. In his note director Michael Kantor implies that we know 'bits' of the controversy, but does mention the fact that in 1863 Carroll broke all contact with Liddel and her family a year after he made up the story to entertain her and her sisters on the rowing trip.
It would be fascinating to speculate on the relationship particularly in the way Carroll's photographs depict a malleable beggar girl compared with the haughty petite bourgeois child in the stories (unconcerned about being in a strange place, talking back to kings and queens and endlessly complaining to and about the tradespeople that populate the two Alice books). The staging is very good, lavish even. Peter Corrigan's set is dominated by a checkered wall and floor that is fleeting changed into a chess board referring to the chess moves that Alice follows through the original story. Locations are supported by projections of Victorian landscapes, often of erupting volcanoes. At one point the cover a 1970s Penguin Books edition of Robert Graves' Goodbye to all That is projected. Liddell lost two of her three sons in World War One, perhaps that loss of children is considered a successor to the original trauma of losing her own 'child' to Carroll. Through the Looking Glass as a 'reflection' of the relationship between Carroll and Liddell remains an unsolved literary mystery but like Carroll's Alice stories will be open to as many and constant interpretations. At less than 70 minutes it could be easily accommodated on a singe CD and preserved as a record of the wide ranging activities on Victoria's industrious opera company.
Postscript: With the furore now breaking over the Bill Henson exhibition, the appearance of this opera focusing on an historical account of a professional photographer (Carroll exhibited and published his photographic work) producing daring daguerreotypes of a child seems rather timely, even spooky.
Through the Looking Glass (2008) Opera in a prologue and 12 scenes
Commissioned by Malthouse and jointly presented with Victorian Opera
Music - Alan John
Libretto - Andrew Upton
Alice - Dimity Shepherd
Lewis Carroll / The Train Driver / Humpty Dumpty / White Knight - David Hobson
Tiger Lily / Passenger / The White Queen / Pudding - Maragret Haggart
Rose / Red Queen / Passenger / Sheep / Unicorn - Suzanne Johnston
Violet / Passenger / Tweedledee / White King - Kanen Breen
Daisy / Guard / Tweedledum / Mutton - Gary Rowley
Three Young Alices / Three Fawns - Stephanie Pidcock, Jacqueline Bathman and Dana Hehir alternating with Emilia Bertolini, Francesca Côdd and Hayley Heath
Conductor - Richard Gill
Musicians: Nicholas Carter (harmonium), Timothy Hook (percussion), David McSkimmimg (piano), Delyth Stafford (harp)
Director - Michael Kantor
Dramaturge - Maryanne Lynch
Set, costume and puppet design - Peter Corrigan
Lighting Design - Paul Jackson
Merlyn Theatre, Malthouse
17 - 31 May 2008
65 minutes (no interval)
1 comments:
i saw this production it was horribly bad i hated it.
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