| Italian Premiere
based upon the fairy-tale novel by
Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland"
music by Arturo Annecchino
libretto by René de Ceccatty
translation into Slovenian and semantic additions by Sreèko Fišer
italian overtitles Sreèko Fišer and Tanja Strnad
directed by Janusz Kica
with Alida Bevk, Ivo Barišiè, Radoš Bolèina, Ana Facchini, Primož Pirnat, Lara Jankoviè, Eva Hren, Iztok Mlakar, Marjuta Slamiè, Danijel Malalan, Ana Facchini, Rosana Peršolja
production Slovensko Narodno Gledališče Nova Gorica | When in 1865 an extravagant Mathematics teacher of the University of Oxford published a novel entitled Alice in Wonderland, he could never have guessed in his farthest dreams that his small heroine would have become one of the main characters of European literature and that a century after his death children and adults all over the world would have still been reading the adventures of wonderland and of the mirror (subject of a second novel in 1872). Even less, Carroll could have thought that Alice would have entered artists’ fantasies in the most different ways, undergoing the most unthinkable expressive metamorphosis. This version of the musical Alice, born from the fertile fantasy combination of several authors (a French libretto writer, an Italian composer, a German set and costume designer, and a Polish director for a Slovenian production) promises to be a peculiar variation of the well-known story. The staging by Janusz Kica offers more, in fact, than a simple musical, although music and songs have a fundamental role, adding atmosphere and an opera edge to the story. But the performance never becomes banal, never a cabaret: it completes the work as a fulfilling red line. After all, the staging is so perfect from a technical point of view, at the limits of excellence, to arouse authentic marvel within the audience that faces true artistic perfection in the choral scenes, in the suggestive fog, in the lighting effects, and in the fluid linking of the scenes. Thus facing a fairy tale world full of intrigue and witty ideas, where the actors constantly interrogate themselves on the border line between dream and reality, challenged by the question whether life is or not anything more than a dream. |
