Premiered on 15 April 2008, The Minotaur is Harrison Birtwistle’s latest opera, and it stands well with the composer’s other stage work.
This disc is based on later performances of the opera, which were given on 25 and 30 April and 3 May 2008 and released on Blu-Ray in 2010. The work is a retelling of the myth of the Cretan minotaur, specifically the culmination of the story in which the Greek hero Theseus survives the labyrinth and rescues Ariadne from the legendary beast. With its libretto in English by David Harsent, the text is a modern retelling, which presents the story in plain and direct terms; the music, as related in the accompanying booklet, has its origins in various sources, including Birtwistle’s Earthdances (1985). The Minotaur also resembles the two-part structure of the composer’s well-known opera Gawain and the Green Knight (2000), a narrative in which a hero also encounters a legendary figure, and in doing so reaches new perspectives about himself. At the same time The Minotaur is an opportunity of the composer to return to the milieu of classical mythology, which he had explored in The Mask of Orpheus (1984).
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