(2001-2004)
Adapted from Lewis Carroll by Gary Bachlund & Marilyn Barnett
After the stories of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass."
In two acts for eighteen soli (playing multiple parts) and chamber orchestra
Act Two
Through the Looking-Glass
Can We Pretend & Jabberwocky
i. Can We Pretend
[Alice and Lewis Carroll are playing chess at a card table near a large, full-length mirror with a small shelf at the bottom. Alice holds her kitten, Kitty, in her lap.]
Alice [Delighted]
Check.
Lewis Carroll [Moving his piece, almost ruefully]
Checkmate.
Act Two - "Through the Looking-Glass" - begins abruptly. Should one wish to present Act Two as a separate chamber opera of one act length, there is a prelude to it titled "Christ Church Meditation," which was written as a sketch for the opera and then set as a solo organ work. The simple polytonality of the opening suggests that which has gone before in Act One.
Alice [Surprised]
Checkmate. Oh....
Oh, it was the fault of that nasty knight,
always wriggling around.
Wriggling and wriggling around.
I could have won if I'd two queens.
Can we pretend....
Lewis Carroll
Yes, if your pawn reaches the eighth square....
I'll set you a problem.
White pawn to play and win in....
In eleven moves.
[Carroll begins to set up the chess problem on the board.]
Alice
Very well.
Kitty could be the Red Queen.
[To Kitty.]
If you sat up and folded your arms,
you'd look exactly like her.
Do try! Pretend.
Lewis Carroll [Regarding Alice as he places the pieces]
Child of the pure, unclouded brow
and dreaming eyes of wonder!
As in Act One, the quintuple meter returns, this time for Lewis Carroll's continuing soliloquy to Alice, both as child and fictional character. This mirrors Lewis Carroll's Prologue which opens Act One and precedes the "Prelude to a Golden Afternoon." This time, he is interrupted by Alice's musings, a pretense to being "kings and queens." Carroll's continuing soliloquy is built of slowly arching dominant seven chords, such that the tonality slowly shifts throughout.
Alice [To Kitty]
Let's pretend we're kings and queens.
Lewis Carroll
Though time be fleet,
and I and thou are half a life asunder,
thy loving smile will surely hail
the love-gift of a fairy tale.
Alice [To Kitty]
If you're not good,
I'll put you through into Looking-Glass house.
[holding Kitty up to the mirror]
How would you like that?
Lewis Carroll
And though the shadow of a sigh
may tremble through the story....
Alice [To Kitty]
I'll tell you all my ideas.
Lewis Carroll
...for happy summer days gone by,
and vanished summer glory....
[The door opens; Dean Liddell enters. Lewis Carroll looks up; Alice curtseys.]
Dean Liddell [Spoken]
Dodgson, could I have a word with you.
Lewis Carroll
Certainly, Dean.
[To Alice]
Look over the problem till I return.
[Carroll exits with the Dean.]
Alice
Kitty, let's pretend the glass is soft like gauze,
so that we can get through.
Why, it's turning into a sort of a mist now!
Easy enough....
What fun it will be when they see me through the glass,
and can't get at me!
[Alice rises from her place and goes to the mirror, and then through it. The stage turns.]
Everything seems to be backwards.
[The "Jabberwocky" book is on Lewis Carroll's chair in the mirror.]
At the change from forwards to backwards, the musical vocabulary begins a subtle shift. Throughout the remainder of this act, one finds many musical palindromes, playing halfway "in" and then back again. Additionally various echoes and musical comments have their reverses somewhere in the details of the score.
A book?
It's all in a language I don't know.
If I hold it up to the glass,
the words will all go the right way again.
[Alice holds the book up to the mirror so that she is facing the audience.]
The right way again....
ii. Jabberwocky
[She reads aloud. The story is enacted behind her.]
This famous text is set in both the manner of an art song, a through composed aria and accompanied by textures reflecting the music hall and silent movie accompaniment styles.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The fruminous Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought -
Among the musical quotes buried in the whole score, this one is most obvious. The "Schwert" theme from Wagner's Ring becomes the announcement of Carroll's "vorpal" blade.
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
Here the dramatic gesture and texture borrowed from a style of accompaniment of the silent movie era carries the descriptive narration of the slaying of the Jabberwock.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
To continue to the next section, click HERE.
Adapted from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass and his additional letters,
by Marilyn Barnett and Gary Bachlund
2001, 2004
Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Gary Bachlund (BMI), Monrovia. All international rights reserved
