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Carl Davis’s Alice in Wonderland Revived by Companhia Nacional de Bailado

Dec. 20, 2024

This month, Portugal’s Companhia Nacional de Bailado revived Carl Davis’s Alice in Wonderland at the Teatro Camões, Lisbon. The production, choreographed by Howard Quintero, received 11 performances, accompanied by the Orquestra Sinonfica Portuguesa, conducted by José Eduardo Gomes. 

Alice in Wonderland was Davis’s second treatment of Caroll’s story, following his 1986 musical. A ballet "after Tchaikovsky," Davis mined numerous works from the Russian composer’s output for the 100-minute score. As well as piano and chamber music, Davis turned to Tchaikovsky’s incidental music for Hamlet for its fanfares and marches, as well as the seldom-performed opera The Maid of Orleans and his symphonic fantasy on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The ballet’s grand waltz comes from the third movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, and his 24 short piano pieces Children’s Album provided material for many of the solo sequences in the ballet. Davis recorded the score with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra in 2010.


Act I: Alice and her Sister from Alice in Wonderland/Carl Davis/City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra/Carl Davis, conductor

The company first presented Quintero’s choreography in 2021. Alice in Wonderland debuted with English National Ballet at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton in 1995, choreographed by Derek Deane. It has received over 150 performances since its creation, including visits to Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Hong Kong’s Grand Theatre with English National Ballet, and, most recently, in 2023 in the Hague with De Dutch Don’t Dance Division, in an MC Escher-inspired choreography by Rinus Sprong.

This month also saw the Shanghai Ballet mount Davis’s The Lady of the Camellias (2008), after Alexandre Dumas’s novel, at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, in its choreography by Derek Deane. November and December 2024 also saw Davis’s A Christmas Carol tour with Northern Ballet as part of their seasonal offering. Massimo Morricone’s choreography, a company mainstay over the years, is designed by Lez Brotherston. The 90-minute score for chamber orchestra, has proven one of Davis’s biggest hits for the ballet stage, receiving over 350 performances since its premiere in 1992.

To learn more about Carl Davis, visit fabermusic.com.

Carl Davis
Alice in Wonderland (1995)
ballet for orchestra after Tchaikovsky
3(3.pic).2.eh.2.2-4.4.3.1-timp-3perc-cel-hp-str
100'

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