This season in Munich for the worldwide ballet spectators started with the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ballet’s live stream. This bright performance with a lot of outstanding characters caught the audience’s attention both off- and online.
This full-length narrative ballet was created by Christopher Wheeldon, an English international choreographer of contemporary ballet, in 2011 with for Royal Ballet, London. The music for the production full of percussion and other unusual elements for the classical ballet scores was created by Joby Talbot. This ballet is a cinematic story and Bayerisches Staatsballett performed its magic absolutely naturally.
Let’s start with the main characters… The girl from the classic Hollywood film Madison Young as Alice handled the technical aspects of the ballet very well. Her Alice was playful and a little naive, and at the same time she seemed to create a new Alice, still dreamy, but more mature and responsible than expected.
Jakob Feyferlik’s debut in Munich happened in the role of Jack / The Knave of Hearts, a ‘prince charming next door’. The new principal showed his character noble and warm at the same time and was very confident in the partnership. Their duet with Young looked light and very soft, as it should be in a fairy tale.
White Rabbit performed by Shale Wagman literally made the spectators fall in love with him. Every small movement, every step, every sight was perfect and painted the character’s personality with the most delicate and accurate lines. This role was created to be performed by the special dancers and technically incrediblе, amazing with his plastique and sense of role, genteel and sensitive Wagman looked great both in the role of Carroll and as the White Rabbit.
The Queen of Hearts is a beautiful and unpredictable, bright and cruel, a really funny character. She was portrayed by Elvina Ibraimova with the great charm and sense of humor. This part is quite complicated and has a lot of acrobatics and it was a peal pleasure to see how Ibraimova herself enjoyed the performance.
All the characters familiar and loved by the audience, like a world famous German scattering mixed fruit confectonery in tins, fascinated both children and adults by the variety of personalities, costumes and individual choreography.
We all need a little of magic in our life, so we read fairy tales, go to the cinema or to the theatre. The Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Munich is a great mixture of a romantic story with a humorous, satiric soft-horror ballet in British style with a bit of German accent.
Text: Julia Sumzina
Photo: Emma Kauldhar
Video: BayerischeStaatsoper