Alice in Wonderland

Last week, E treated me to a night at the opera!  What a lovely surprise, since I already had my night with Grandpa and was not expecting another one!  This time it was Alice in Wonderland, so we did the only acceptable thing: had a Mad Hatter tea party!

We had curried egg sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches with dill and scallion cream cheese, crackers with horseradish cheese spread (made with real horseradish!), pomegranate scones, lemon cookies, linzer cookies, Jordan almonds, fruit gummies, and other delicious and most colorful treats!  Oh, and of course drinks: wine, pink or yellow lemonade, iced tea, and candy-striped straws through which to drink!

Our table, which doesn't show remotely all of our goodies - certainly not the petit fours, which we saved for dessert after the show!

Now, on to the show itself.  Alice, in its U.S. premiere, was good - certainly enjoyable - but I did not think it measured up to the wonder that was Sweeney Todd.   Of course, that would be hard to do.

It was surely amusing; I laughed out loud several times.  The caterpillar was particularly fun, as was the Duchess.  There was great variety in the characters' attitude and costumes, not to mention their pieces of music.  But since I did mention them, they ranged from rap to much more classical aria.  In truth, I found it to be a bit more like watching a musical play than an opera, however.  The scoring is quite modern and felt like it could use a bit more refinement, though it did play well to different characters' traits and story.

The set pieces were limited: four or five large cabinets as well as a few smaller props.  It was amazing everything that was done with them though.  It felt like I was following Alice on her adventures, even though I was always looking at the same stage.