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Peter Westergaard: Alice in Wonderland: first six scenes from a work in progress. Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space, 95th at Broadway, New York City, New York.
The first six scenes from Peter Westergaard's mostly *a cappella opera Alice in Wonderland were premiered by seven aboslutely top rate singers. The only pitched instruments used were occasional hand-bells played by the singers themselves. What pitches the played and when was worked out between the composer and the singers as a practical matter of ensuring proper pitch. Singers also play a triangle, door sound effects, some other unpitched percussion, and bird calls, as well as holding up mylar strips to reflect on a cyc behind them to give a watery look to the pool-of-tears scene. They also vocalized other bird calls in addition to good old singing.
No matter that they did all those extra-vocal things, it was their uniformly excellent singing that carried the day. Yes, they sang a difficult score filled with harmonies and intervals which in the composer’s context were often complex and ear-stretching (an Ivesian virtue!).
To convey what it required of all, though most notably Alice, one must remember the kind of vocalism required for Cage's Aria with Fontana Mix. When Westergaard hears the various intervals, he gives them emotional or visual meanings, rather in the way some composers see different colors for different keys or chords. So as he builds structures, he is actually creating something filled with much more emotional-pictorial content than meets the casual ear. Once one begins to intuitively unravel and understand his vocabulary as the piece progresses, it is revealed as quite a wonderful construction.
On the down side , I'm not sure how long one can listen to the sound quality of mostly high voices, even with their different colorations. When the bass finally had some real work it was a great sonic relief. After all, with seven singers, only two of whom are a tenor and a bass — the third male is a counter-tenor — it was too high-voicedly monochromatic for my taste. At times placing even the wonderful Alice against other high voices caused her to blend in where she needed to stand out from the surrounding sound.
That said, the idea of doing an essentially a cappella opera was quite fascinating. Only a minute or two went by before I found myself connecting the music with 16th century Italian narrative madrigals, a path which led me if not to home, at least to a comfort zone.
It was certainly fascinating to hear. I look forward to hearing the completed work.