Gerald Barry’s hour-long surreal opera Alice’s Adventures under Ground was composed in 2016. The world premiere concert performance took place in LA and a week later in London (KL 98:39). In 2020, a fully staged production took place at the The Barbican Centre, a co-production of the Irish National Opera and the Royal Opera, Covent Garden (KL 104:54), which is viewable on YouTube.
The opera is actually a blend of Wonderland and Looking-Glass, described by Joe Cadagin in Opera News (April 2022) as “… the most curious yet … zipping along at the pace of a cartoon on fast-forward … bizarrely constructed from vocal warmups and pedagogical exercises … gymnastics … a manic collage of Victorian bric-a-brac … excessive, idiotic, immature, and in bad taste—but brilliantly so!” He calls it “an ideal musical match for Carroll” (Joe was the Knight Letter 98 reviewer as well).
Now Signum Classics has released the performance on CD.
