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'Alice in Wonderland' in Munich

by Zoe Strimpel
Mon, 26 Nov 2007 at 7:28 PM
updated Mon, 26 Nov 2007 at 7:31 PM

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MUNICH — Traditionally, Bavarians have been known as culture vultures. For any self-respecting Frankfurter or Munich dweller, a weekly trip to the opera, or a concert, is still the norm, if my German friends are correct. The importance of culture in German life is certainly clear in the prominence of the Opera House in Munich, an enormous Classical tribute to the arts, which faces an enormous square, nothing but empty stone stretching before it.

What we saw there was no ordinary show. It was "Alice in Wonderland," an operatic puppet show, with the star conductor Kent Nagano as music director. Directed by the South Korean Unsuk Chin, "Alice" opened at the Munich Opera Festival in July to a mixture of boos and spirited applause. No wonder some members of Munich's stern and devoted opera-going audience were put out by what at times seemed nothing but an abrasive series of wails belted out behind garish painted masks. Alice (played by Sally Matthews) managed to hit some of the highest notes possible in the human range, and the chorus, a line of grey-faced men behind pairs of gloves spinning detached from their body, spent much time in unbelievably high alto range. Easy listening it was not.

Visually, the show was both shocking and boring. Shocking that everything and everyone popped out from a different level on a steeply slanted black stage. Most characters, from the Queen to Alice, appeared tiny against the menacing backdrop, and the presence of wires hanging from the ceiling, needed for highly complex technical feats (dancing faces, trapeze-swinging monsters, a spiky-teethed grin rising and falling like a big sun at the back), made it all seem wondrously otherworldly and precarious. But the eye (and soul) needs more than a great black stage and small, painted figures to keep it engaged. Likewise the ear (or this one, anyway) needs coherence and some warmth, not what sounds like a series of agonizing soprano stretches and bewildered howls, however in keeping with Alice's unsettling world.

Thematically, this "Alice" hit the nail on the head. For someone who guiltily confesses that her main exposure to Lewis Carroll's creepy story is the Disney movie, this came as a wake-up call. It is a deeply unsettling tale, and the uneasy sexual element was brought out as the Cheshire cat rubbed himself with his tail, and when a singsong command from a giant animal has Alice lift her bloomers. And the sudden, often nonsensical shifts in scene and music perfectly recreated the sensation of confused sleep, or, of course, drug-induced hallucination.

An ambitious show, but judging by the repeat of boos (and claps) at the end, Nagano and Chin are out on a limb. Whether it is a worthwhile limb is questionable.

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