Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has had several revivals at The Royal Ballet since its creation in 2011, but somehow I always missed out on the reviewing gig, so your critic, dear reader, sees it now with fresh eyes. I am very happy to report that it’s a marvellous piece, a classic that will be a stalwart in the repertoire of any company that adopts it (and many already have).
Wheeldon’s catalogue, though mainly filled with hits, also includes a few quite substantial misses, but Alice is a repository of laugh-out-loud moments, touching sweetness and some beautifully layered, richly-textured choreography. His classical base carries the quirky modern touches very well on the whole, although sometimes it can seem that he’ll be going along with beautifully pure passages when it suddenly occurs to him that he should be innovating, and we get a phrase of odd hand movements or ins and outs with the knees.
Occasionally I have found this slightly annoying, but in Alice this mixed style sits well alongside Bob Crowley’s Tenniel-influenced designs (beautifully lit by Natasha Katz) and Joby Talbot’s filmic score. The importance of assembling a simpatico collaborative team cannot be overstated, and Wheeldon is a choreographer who almost always gets this spot-on.
Once Alice is down the rabbit hole the scenario follows Lewis Carroll’s dreamscape faithfully. Topping and tailing her adventures are charming real-life scenes relating to her dream and illuminating it; there’s even an unexpected plot-twist at the end: no spoilers, but it’s clever and very, very sweet.
The journeys down and up the rabbit hole are done via intricate, spiralling projections that are entirely right. Clever scale-adjusting backdrops elucidate the Eat Me/Drink Me scenes, and I loved the Cheshire Cat, ingeniously made to appear and disappear via puppetry. The designs for the Queen of Hearts and her Kingdom are simply stunning, especially the huge moulded scarlet gown behind which the Queen is trundled on and off the stage before stepping out of it in a glamorous red dress, the King huddled at her knees.
One could hardly have wished for more perfect casting. Anna-Rose O’Sullivan is the very incarnation of Alice, exuding youth and vigour through her acting but refinement and precision through her shimmering, pin-sharp footwork and controlled balances. Her potential showed itself early in her career and she drew the eye from her earliest appearances on stage, but now she has matured into a fully-fledged star of the company with admirable versatility. In this production Alice is barely ever off stage and it must be exhausting, but O’Sullivan sailed through it all with style and immense charm.
William Bracewell as Jack/The Knave of Hearts is her ardent admirer, the embodiment of youthful charm burnished by his wonderfully elegant technique. He is the closest the company currently has to the danseur noble purity of Anthony Dowell. Gary Avis as the Duchess is only stopped from stealing his scenes completely by his own innate good taste. Guffaws abounded every time he appeared, and I loved his exit from his solo curtain call, jam tart revealed from behind his back. Luca Acri, in fine technical form, was an engaging White Rabbit, Téo Dubreuil was a comic March Hare, and as always Kristen McNally gave her all as the Cook, swinging the cleaver around with aplomb. Francisco Serrano as the Caterpillar was spectacularly sinuous and danced flawlessly. I spotted Martin Diaz leading the three gardeners: he is one to watch. Marco Masciari in the corps de ballet shone in a series of grand jetés.
There was an impressive debut from Amelia Townsend in the role originated by Steven McRae, that of the tap-dancing Mad Hatter. I have had my eye on Townsend for a while and I hope this impressive debut, in which she showed comic chops as well as tapping up a storm, will be the beginning of good things for her.
All the above dancers, and others, were excellent, but for me the star of the show was Mayara Magri as the Queen of Hearts, replacing the scheduled Natalia Osipova. Magri’s characterisation is so finely nuanced, so clearly portrayed, so immaculately danced that one could only marvel at her many faceted-talent. She and Christopher Saunders as her hen-pecked husband, played off each other with diamond-sharp clarity and elicited belly-laughs in the auditorium.
Plaudits to Martin Georgiev and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, who did fine work in the pit, and to the rehearsal staff. If I may be allowed one small cavil, it is that the performance, at 2 hours 50 minutes, is too long; two acts would be better than three, although obviously the logistics of set-changes etc may make that impossible. In any case, Alice is here to delight all generations for many decades to come.
