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Organization

Singer

Soprano

Sally Matthews

Alice

Piia Komsi

Cheshire Cat

Baritone

Dietrich Henschel

Mad Hatter

Duck

Countertenor

Andrew Watts

White Rabbit

March Hare

Badger

Tenor

Guy de Mey

Mouse

Dormouse

Cook

Invisible Man

Mezzo-soprano

Cynthia Jansen

Ugly Duchess

Gwyneth Jones

Queen of Hearts

Bass

Steven Humes

King of Hearts

Old Man No.2

Crab

Christian Rieger

1. Old Man/Eaglet/Five/Executioner/Fish-Footman

Eaglet

Five

Executioner

Fish-Footman

Rüdiger Trebes

Frog-Footman

Seven

Dodo

Instrumentalist

Stefan Schneider

Caterpillar

Conductor

Kent Nagano

Stage director

Achim Freyer

Set designer

Costume designer

Nina Weitzner

Lighting designer

Michael Bauer

Chorus master

Andrés Máspero

Dramaturge

Sophie Becker

Peter Heilker

Bayerische Staatsoper

Orchestra

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Alice in Wonderland

Munich

Germany

Nationaltheater

Alice in Wonderland is an opera composed by Unsuk Chin between 2004 and 2007 and commissioned by conductor Kent Nagano, with a libretto by David Henry Hwang and the composer, and inspired by Lewis Carroll's work.

Born in Seoul, Korea, in 1961, Unsuk Chin has always been fascinated by Lewis Carroll's fairy tale. Just like the tale, the composer's first opera, a work in eight scenes for three soloists or more, chorus and orchestra, is very accessible and as modern as pleasant.

It contains many references to composers like Ravel, Handel, Elgar, Stravinsky and Puccini and features many unusual instruments such as musical saws, slide whistles, an accordion, a harmonica, and a bass clarinet, a homage to George Gershwin.

The singing performance of the artists is as flawless as their theatrical performance, which is very requiring in this opera. We listen with pleasure to Sally Matthews in Alice's role, Andrew Watt in the White rabbit's role, and Gwyneth Jones in the mean Queen of hearts' role.

Alice's dream starts with the arrival of the White rabbit in a hurry, and then we rediscover during the two-hour show mythical characters, from the Cheshire cat to the Mad hatter, including all the animals of the tale.

The beautiful performance of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, conducted by great Kent Nagano, doubtlessly contributes to the magic of this opera and takes us, along with the acrobats' and pantomimes' movements of Achim Freyer's staging, between dream and reality.

Ravel, Handel, Elgar, Stravinsky, an excerpt from Puccini's "Turandot", a bass clarinet homage to George Gershwin, glissandi, echoes of musicals, film music and Gilbert & Sullivan - Unsuk Chin is a master of style parody, but also much more than that : She is clearly at home on all streets and paths of music history. Yet the musical house she builds from the building blocks of the past and present is clearly her own house, one she has designed and one that confidently proclaims her distinctive individuality and style. It is a thoroughly modern establishment where everyone who loves music is welcome. "I didn't want to write music that needed several pages of explanation in order to be understood," she says of her first opera, "

Born in 1961 in Seoul, Korea, Unsuk Chin has always been fascinated by Lewis Carroll's fairy tales for children and adults alike. Director Achim Freyer, who has been setting standards with his productions for decades, sees Chin's opera as a collection of "dream sequences" for which he created imaginary spaces: acrobats use pulleys to represent the magical figures from Alice's world and interpret the action in pantomime and with the help of colorful masks and props. "The girl's nightmarish visions. Dream, reality, hyper-reality merge, everything is theatre, transformation," says Freyer. The characters themselves are sung by singers (notable: Andrew Watts as White Rabbit) who sit in a row at the front of the stage and wear Lewis Carroll masks. The focus is Alice, portrayed by the stunning Sally Matthews. "She has to do everything with her flexible, beguiling and characteristic soprano voice. With virtuosic ease she switches from rebelliousness to fear, flirt, anxiety, irony, tragedy and the art of seduction." (Reinhard J. Brembeck, Süddeutsche Zeitung).

Matthews is supported by the dynamic and transparent Bavarian State Opera Orchestra under Kent Nagano, who conducted the world premieres of several of Chin's works and originally planned to produce "Alice in Wonderland" in Los Angeles. One of the great moments of the work is the appearance of Dame Gwyneth Jones as the Queen of Hearts, "dazzling as a diamond, dazzling as a natural phenomenon... undeniably the pinnacle of this opening production... brimming with phenomenal singers and phenomenal imagery". (Eleonore Büning, FAZ) One of the highlights of the 2007 Munich Opera Festival, Unsuk Chin's "Alice in Wonderland", is contemporary music in its most accessible and popular form.

Alice in Wonderland Chin

Public

Approved

When Korean composer Unsuk Chin's opera was first performed by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, it caused a sensation among music critics worldwide. Based on Lewis Carroll's famous and fascinatingly enigmatic novel Alice in Wonderland, it is a seductive, enchanting, sensuous opera set to a modern, ear-pleasing score -- a triumph of creative fantasy. Unsuk Chin was born in Seoul in 1961, studied with György Ligeti in Hamburg and now lives in Berlin. She has an acute ear for instrumentation, orchestral colours and rhythmic imagery. Her compositions are modern in language but lyrical in their communicative power.
Kent Nagano, a long-time supporter of Chin's music, expertly conducted the Bavarian State Opera and a team of wonderful singer-actors including international stars like Dietrich Henschel and Gwyneth Jones. The opera about Alice's search for her identity - "her reality in the appearance of the world" - as director Achim Freyer put it, switches from delicacy to cuteness to grotesquery and back again. The rather conventional Alice starts following her dreams, meeting a white rabbit that guides her through a wonderland. Alice views it all with amazement and learns -- finally returning to the real world, richer for the experience. 
The phenomenal fairy-tale settings and production were in the hands of Achim Freyer, who created a firework of colour and form. The marvellous costumes and puppets were created by Nina Weitzner, who was named „Costume Designer of the Year" by the German music magazine Opernwelt for her imaginative designs. And in a survey of the magazine's opera critics, Unsuk Chin's opera, which closed Kent Nagano's first season at the Bavarian State Opera, was hailed as the „World Première of the Year".
This live recording of the premiere in the Nationaltheater in Munich in June 2007 provides a feast of audiovisual entertainment. This amazing theatrical and musical wonderland can now be experienced on DVD!

Chin: Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland by Chin, Alkaen (2007/2007), Ohjannut Achim Freyer,, Musiikinjohto Kent Nagano, Nationaltheater, Munich, Germany

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