About the work
Alice in Wonderland is Unsuk Chin's only opera, composed between 2004 and 2007 to a libretto she wrote with David Henry Hwang loosely after Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. It premiered on 30 June 2007 at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, conducted by Kent Nagano and directed by Achim Freyer.
Plot
The action is framed by two dream sequences: Alice follows the White Rabbit into a Wonderland populated by grotesque figures such as the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts, where familiar proportions and logic no longer apply.
Cultural significance
Originally intended for Los Angeles Opera, Chin eventually brought the project to Munich together with Kent Nagano; the trade magazine Opernwelt named the production its "world premiere of the year" for 2007. Critics praised the work as one of the most significant new operas of its time, calling it as anarchic and surreal as its literary source.