ABSTRACT
Based on Lewis Carroll’s novel, Unsuk Chin’s one-act opera Alice in Wonderland (2007) is replete with witty and versatile musical experimentation, incorporating styles ranging from the Baroque through Schoenberg to contemporary musical theatre and film music. All eight scenes in the opera are full of instrumental and dramatic vibrancy, but the tea-party scene has been singled out as a particularly remarkable achievement: ‘an enormously skilful Baroque mix, perfectly sculpted and musically enchanting’ (Leipsic 2007Leipsic 2007).
At first glance, the tea-party scene might come across as a hodgepodge, lacking logical coherence and thematic relevance. It is a mix of diverse musical styles, and the unrelenting wordplay seems entirely senseless; the music and text seem randomly put together. Despite initial appearances, however, the tea-party scene is far more than musical pastiche and verbal shenanigans. In fact, the operatic adaption presents a new interpretative layer through the ostentatiously bizarre relationship between text and music. As in the book, the opera abounds with apparent nonsense and illogical situations, dialogue and behaviour; but does the music follow the literary tricks and techniques? How does the music reflect and convey the irony, paradox, satire and allegory in the text?
This essay explores Chin’s musical-textual design for the tea-party scene, teasing out how the composer weaves together semantic absurdity and musical coherence. To decode this musical-dramatic riddle, I analyse pitch organisation, rhythmic arrangement, texture and tempo changes as they relate the text. Through illuminating the logic of Chin’s musical structures, I argue that the riddle scene is not actually chaotic, but rather presents a gradual liberation from the initial organisational principles.
