Product Details

• Actors: Sally Matthews, Dietrich Henschel, Guy de Mey, Gwyneth Jones, Kent Nagano
• Directors: Achim Freyer
• Format: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: German, English, French, Spanish
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: EuroArts
• DVD Release Date: April 29, 2008
• Run Time: 123 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0015XHQYY
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #76,549 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
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!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exciting new opera in the spirit of Lewis Carroll , September 6, 2008

By	Jabberwocky - See all my reviews

There are seldom contemporary operas that strike the attention as much as do the masterworks of the genre (such as Monteverdi, Purcell, Mozart, Wagner, Ravel, Shostakovich...), but here is a new work which has the qualities to become a staple of the repertoire.

It is quite challenging to take a complex book such as Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' as basis for a new operatic piece which has little in common with the traditional melodramatic operatic subjects. Just take Carroll's wordplays as an example: how can one render these into operatic action? However, the composer and her fabulous librettist, David Henry Hwang, have succeeded. They have remained faithful to the source, omitting only the conventional beginning and ending. Hwang is a linguistic virtuoso, and he seems to thrive in transforming 'Alice' into singable texts. The music is rich and many-sided, listener-friendly and challenging at the same time. Chin fuses her original musical style, which sounds sometimes non-Western in its extensive use of percussions and its intricate rhythms, with allusions to different musical epochs, which are often displayed in a parodist way. When the 'Mad tea-party', for instance, turns into a nonsensical riddle game, Chin turns the scene in a musical game by parodizing Baroque music and twelve-tone-music. She has a fine sense for dramaturgic line, and new musical ideas are constantly appearing. One can sense that she has a great affinity for Lewis Carroll's artistic world.

The musical performance is top-notch. Kent Nagano, an ingenious conductor especially for 20th century and contemporary music, shines with Chin's music and the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra and Choir are fabulous. The singers succeed in masterful performances, although the music is very complex.

As regards the staging: one can see that the director Achim Freyer, who was also in charge of design and light, was an acclaimed stage designer before he began directing. The visual aspect is absolutely stunning: Freyer has created unique images which not many (if any) opera directors can match. The Art brut-like masks and puppets, at the same time touching and eerie, are made by Nina Weitzner.
As regards Freyer's interpretation of 'Alice's' content: the director is inspired by psychoanalytic symbols, and takes the story deadly serious. Thus there is not so much room for the puns and grotesques so crucial for Lewis Carrolls writing. (Chin's music and Hwang's libretto pay all the more hommage to these aspects).
Sometimes it is difficult to follow the stage action, as Freyer decided to double all roles with actors.
Despite some inconsistencies, it is definitely worth to see Freyer's staging, if not for other aspects, then for its imagery.

Sadly, the chaotic video directing doesn't make much sense and thus fails to do justice to this production.
But because this is the first recording of an unique opera and document of an exciting - and in many respects singular - artistic collaboration, it deserves five stars.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Frighteningly Real Fantasy, June 5, 2008

By	John Pearse "Percussion Geek" (La Crosse, WI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Unlike other versions of this Wonderland tale, things are taken to a completely new level. Under the wing of the highly skillful Kent Nagano and the up-and-coming Unsuk Chin, Alice is brought into a wonderfully insightful new land of fantasy, one that sits on the very edge of reality.

The masterful stage direction, music, costuming, and everything else that went into this opera create a highly juxtaposed view on Wonderland. The staging itself draws greatly to the feeling of floating through a magical yet scary and dark landscape. This music completes the feeling of sharp jagged angles jutting through Alice imagination. Characters are much more malevolent than comical when the masks are on. They are brought to life by actors and actresses floating about the stage on cables, while the opera singers are safely performing on the ground in front of the forty-five degree angle stage.

All in all, this is an opera for those who are very open to new orchestral music. If you are willing to join Alice in this frightening new fantasy, I highly recommend you watch it. If you were hoping for a fun and comical opera, stay very far away from this.

1.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful design, terrible video production, May 29, 2009

By	Cookiewise "cookiewise" (San Rafael, CA USA) - See all my reviews

The music is intriguing, but mostly unlistenable. The design is beautiful, if incredibly monotonous and repetative. most of the time, the characters are standing in one place. That is probably why they never stop moving the video camera--zooming in and out, dutching the camera, and using split screen in ways that do not enhance the show, but reveal further it's inherent problems. It's a static show, but it looks as if J.J. Abrams shot it--the camera NEVER stops moving.

Dreadful.