We were all in Wonderland! Gerald Barry’s Alice Adventures Under Ground is a joyous, hour-long opera that will delight audiences of all ages
Alice’s Adventures Under Ground
Royal Opera House, London Until today
Hats off to the little-known Irish composer Gerald Barry, whose late-flowering career (he’s almost as old as me!) has produced a generally joyous, hour-long take on Lewis Carroll’s oeuvre to his own libretto.
Barry was a student of Karlheinz Stockhausen, a character way weirder than anyone Carroll ever created. Barry has finally digested that experience, with music that (rightly) is never comfortable or predictable, but always on the right side of accessible.
And it’s well aimed at children who have not yet learned to be prejudiced against anything modernist out of hand. The programme describes the score as ‘immersed in a kaleidoscopic musical programme that is at once enticing, transfixing, shocking, disturbing, and provoking the deepest belly laughs…’
Claudia Boyle’s Alice (above, centre, with Clare Presland and Hilary Summers) has to encompass 98 High Cs, 30 of them in the runs and arpeggios during her first minute on stage
Barry’s music then undeniably poses real challenges to the dedicated double cast assembled here. Alice alone – the Irish soprano Claudia Boyle – has to encompass 98 High Cs, 30 of them in the runs and arpeggios during her first minute on stage!
And the singers have to be versatile; for instance, the accomplished British baritone Mark Stone (who will be performing Wotan in Norway next month) has to sing ‘The White Knight, The Cheshire Cat, a Soldier, Bottle 3, Cake 3, Baby 3, Oyster 3, Passenger 5, and Daisy 3’.
All these varied elements are brilliantly held together by conductor Thomas Ades, but what makes the show really work is Antony McDonald’s virtuosic staging, plus his designs, based on Victorian illustrations, which makes the 19th-century stage within a stage assembled a constant joy.
Gerald Barry’s opera based on Lewis Carroll’s classic stories really challenges the performers and an excitable audience from nine to 90 thoroughly enjoyed it. Above: Sam Furness
An excitable audience from nine to 90 thoroughly enjoyed it. The younger element brought some interesting audience participation. The Red Queen shouts, ‘I see!’ and then unwisely pauses. A kid in the stalls shouts, ‘What?’ to general applause.
This opens up myriad possibilities. In Wagner, for instance, when Wotan bangs on incessantly, we need a kid to shout out ‘Get on with it!’
At the end of the show a distinguished patron confessed to me: ‘I wish all operas only lasted an hour.’ Amen to that.