That's interesting, Mary. I shall have to think about that. It wasn't an aspect that had occurred to me before  -  not least because of the centrality of Ariadne  -  but you may be right. Harrison Birtwistle can, I suppose, be fairly characterised as a particularly 'male' composer. In fact, with the notable exception of Stravinsky, I can't immediately think of another composer who is overtly 'maler'.

I'm not sure it follows though that, on those grounds, The Minotaur shouldn't therefore be of equal interest to women. Part of what art can do, I reckon, is to introduce us to the sensibilities of those which we are not. (And, although a male, I count as a fairly tame one who hasn't actually gored and devoured many sacrificial innocents myself so it didn't feel as if it was about 'my team' either.)  An interesting thought though about it's 'maleness' which I hadn't consciously picked up on before.


[On John's 'tunes', I spent much of the night with "Asterios ... Asterios " going round and round in my head  if that's any help.]

Not only the fairy music from Act One in my case, Mary, but the final "Now until the break of day....", but then, as I've pointed out before, it's a particular Britten trick to save something special for the end (although it took him time to develop this: it doesn't occur in Grimes for example).

It's an interesting point that you make about the 'maleness' of The Minotaur: there are definite strains of opera which follow different patterns, and this one, as you pointed out, belongs to the line which includes Wagner's music dramas and Richard Strauss's heavier works as well as most of Birtwistle's previous output: ritualistic, philosophical, examining the darker aspects of human nature: interpreting layers of a story rather than just relating it. Most of Britten's works, on the other hand, are coloured by his more delicate sensitivities: he's generally more interested in the emotional journeys of highly individual characters rather than examining the implications of situations by the interactions of archetypes. (All the same, I'd suggest that the Parables for Church Performance are moving towards this more ritualistic genre, and that Death in Venice exploits a ritualistic overlay as well as addressing the interpretation of a very human (and deeply personal) story, and point out that even on this board I'm not alone in seeing links between The Minotaur and Billy Budd, both in the sound-world and the examination of a central character's attempt to understand (justify?) his destructiveness - I see more than a touch of Claggart in the Minotaur, written incidentally for exactly the same range and timbre of voice.)

I was reminded of Claggart, too, but I thought it was largely because the last time I saw Tomlinson that's the part he was singing.

   I know the name HB but have always avoided listening to any of his music.One of my friends from long ago said some thing about 'rubbish' and put me off from exploring any further.However,I did record the R3 broadcast of the opera last week.I did not listen at the time but transferred it to 2CD's later in the week.I then listened to it at my leisure and although I would not go so far as to say that I liked it I did very seriously think that TO SEE IT WAS ESSENTIAL!
      I set up my DVC/HDD recorder to record it last night and everything was OK until 21:30 when we,along with a few thousand others, had a power cut!The power came on again at about 22:15 and the recording recommenced automatically.I lost the first part of the second half of the opera but I am hoping(Ha-Ha)that there will be a repeat sometime in the future.Such is life!!

Ron,

Yes, clearly several members here very much enjoyed Minotaur, but they need to know that some of us didn't. The seeing of the opera was for me much better than just the hearing of it last week. I was interested enough to want to watch it all, it was powerful and fascinating, but family commitments made that impossible. I'm sorry if I can only say my main disappointment was a 'lack of tuneful singing' but as George rightly said my only vocal memory is Asterios...Asterios   and generally I thought the libretto was weak, not much poetry in it.

Richard,

Well I would only define poetry as a clever use of words, and saw no evidence of that last night.

Many would regard the use of the subtitles as unfortunate but I for one could not have followed the events on stage without them, but I was disappointed by the plainness of the language. I saw some Greek text too, which wasn't translated - I suppose two sets of subtitles at those points would have been silly 


John W

John, are you sure you want to stick with 'a clever use of words' as a definition of poetry? 

IGI, I totally agree. Some wonderful poetry in that libretto, although of course it isn't poetry per se - a libretto needs to do some fairly tricky jobs in opera, and the rhythmic qualities of the lines (and their structure in cycles and using varieties of repetition) would have been paramount, I'm sure, knowing what we do of HB's predelictions in that direction. A good librettist knows how to write words to be sung - a very different craft from writing a stageplay. Harsent's libretto seemed exemplary to me.