Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

by Will Todd, libretto by Maggie Gottleib

seen at the Linbury Studios, Covent Garden on 6 November 2015

Directed by Martin Duncan and designed by Leslie Travers, this new opera was conducted by Matthew Waldren and featured Fflur Wyn as Alice with Robert Burt as the Queen of Hearts and James Cleverton as the White Rabbit. 

This adaptation of the two Lewis Carroll 'Alice' books was commissioned by Holland Park Opera in 2013 and has been revived by them each summer since. It transferred to the Linbury Studios for four performances this November, requiring a considerable re-staging, since in the Park the audience moved from scene to scene, whereas in the auditorium the scene changes had to be managed on the stage.

The music was bright, but with sufficient undertones of disquiet to prevent it from being merely saccharine, and it constantly served the libretto, which was clearly sung by the whole cast. Fflur Wyn was especially engaging as Alice, singing in a variety of styles with great vocal command. The depiction of the Queen of Hearts was clearly reminiscent of the fiercer sort of pantomime dame, a part relished by Robert Burt. Other characters from the books made impressive cameo appearances, particularly the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat and the White Knight, while the Mad Hatter's Tea Party provided a great set piece.

The story, however, was only loosely connected to the original books. The framing device was not a dreamy summer riverside, but an unprepossessing town ('Grimthorpe') on a wet day, with the Rabbit caged in a vet's shop. The baffling nature of Wonderland was tamed by an explanation that the Queen of Hearts was some sort of parvenu authoritarian who, when not recommending decapitation, sent her prisoners to toil in a tea factory. The resolution, then, was not Alice's testy but unanswerable remark that she and her court were nothing but a pack of cards - instead the Queen was told to mend her ways and undergo therapy. Other figures suffered demeaning transformations as well - Humpty Dumpty was not a self-satisfied wordsmith, but instead an irascible schoolmaster.

So, perhaps one should say that the opera was 'inspired by' rather than 'adapted from' Lewis Carroll; and for devotees of the books, some of the inspirations were far less impressive than the original. Arguably, however, the tone of pedantry mixed with anarchy so characteristic of Carroll's prose is almost impossible to represent on the stage, still less when everything must be sung.

On its own terms the piece must be regarded as successful, since it held the attention of almost all the children in the audience throughout its 100 minutes (with no interval) - no mean feat. There were several clever ideas, such as having the audience greeted by characters in high Victorian dress who were bossily polite but far more engrossed with calling to one another across the auditorium about being late for tea; or having the major flats on the set match the picture postcards that made up the programme. These engaged the children immediately, especially as those who were interested were encouraged to check out the orchestral arrangements before the performance started; in short the atmosphere was completely welcoming and relaxed.

The episodic nature of the story must have been better served in Holland Park, where the tumble down the rabbit hole and other journeys were evidently the signal for the whole audience to move to a different location to take up the next scene; at the Linbury this excitement was perforce missing, and the linking passages had to accompany some rather frantic bustling by the cast while the technicians re-organised the set. However, even under these constraints the energy of the piece was mantained.