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Birtwistle's The Minotaur: the opera and a diary of its first production
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
Abstract
Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur, to a libretto by David Harsent, was premiered at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in April 2008. This article offers a synopsis, a diary of rehearsals for the opera (for all of which the composer was in attendance), and an analytical essay. The diary chronicles the development of the production, with its diversions from, and clarifications of, the text as well as the composer's reaction to these. The essay presents The Minotaur as a departure for Birtwistle, from narrative (as in the earlier Gawain) to characterisation, its basis being a trio of protagonists. While a predictably heroic Theseus and tragic Minotaur are characters fashioned by the libretto as much as the music, a multi-faceted Ariadne is primarily the composer's creation.
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- Copyright © © Cambridge University Press 2008
References
1 These are, in order of composition, Punch and Judy (1967), The Mask of Orpheus (1973–84), Gawain (1990–1), The Second Mrs Kong (1993–4), The Last Supper (1998–99), The Io Passion (2003) and The Minotaur (2005–7).
2 A précis of the Dürrenmatt scenario is given in Michael Hall, Harrison Birtwistle in Recent Years (London, 1998), 151–2.
3 See David Beard, ‘Birtwistle's Labyrinth’, Opera, 59, 4 (April 2008), 379.
4 See preface to the score of The Minotaur (London, 2008).
5 Jonathan Cross, Harrison Birtwistle: Man, Mind, Music (London, 2000), 95.
6 In the first production, the Innocents and Theseus all climbed down ladders to the bullring. This seems to have derived from one of Birtwistle's early inspirations for The Minotaur mentioned above – Picasso's Minotauromachia. ‘Birtwistle has also spoken of his desire for ladders in the set, like the one in Picasso's etching. Theseus was to enter the labyrinth by means of a ladder, and Harsent rather liked the device “since it allowed Ariadne to have been even more inventive in her means of giving Theseus an advantage”.’ Beard, ‘Birtwistle's Labyrinth’, 380.
7 The Durrenmatt scenario also details the rape/death of a young girl: ‘A girl enters the labyrinth, and when he begins to dance, she begins to dance. “He danced his monstrosity, she danced her beauty… and he did not know that he took the girl, nor could he know that he killed her, since he did not know what life and death were.”’ Hall, Harrison Birtwistle, 151.
8 The mirror also seems a significant legacy from the Dürrenmatt scenario (as recorded by Michael Hall): ‘[The Minotaur] becomes aware that the creatures he has been dancing with since being in the labyrinth are his reflections. “And gradually it dawned on him that he was facing himself”’ (Hall, 152). Theseus is doubly linked to Dürrenmatt's mirror: ‘On awakening [the Minotaur] sees a creature that looks like himself, but is clearly not his reflection. It is Theseus dressed like the Minotaur’ (Hall, 152). In the present opera, in his dream, the Minotaur sees Theseus in the mirror. In scene 12, at the deadly duel, he finally recognises him and cries out, ‘It was you!’.
9 Stanislaz Lem's science fiction novel. The pair had considered this for an opera libretto before The Minotaur, but had discovered its rights had been bought by a movie-star. See Hall, 150.
10 See Rhian Samuel, ‘Birtwistle's Gawain: An Essay and a Diary’, this journal, 4, 2 (1992), 163–78; also David Beard, ‘The Shadow of Opera: Dramatic Narrative and Musical Discourse in Gawain’, Twentieth-Century Music, 2, 2 (2006), 159–95.
11 Robert Adlington, The Music of Harrison Birtwistle (Cambridge, 2000), 29.
12 Samuel, ‘Birtwistle's Gawain’, 168.
13 For more on Mrs Kong, see Rhian Samuel, ‘Time Remembered: Birtwistle's The Second Mrs Kong’, Opera, 45, 10 (Oct. 1994), 1153–8.
14 Diary entry, 19 February.
15 Adlington, The Music of Harrison Birtwistle, p. 95.
16 David Beard, ‘Beauty and the Beast: A Conversation with Sir Harrison Birtwistle’, The Musical Times, 49, 902 (Spring 2008), 25.
17 This of course is in direct contrast to Theseus's ‘I will go to him. I made a promise’ in scene 8.
18 Samuel, ‘Birtwistle's Gawain’, 177.
19 Diary entry, Thursday, 3 April.
20 Diary entry, Monday, 3 March.
21 Adlington, The Music of Harrison Birtwistle, 191.
22 Diary entry, Friday, 4 April. Elsewhere, Birtwistle gives something that might pass as an explanation: ‘The thing about Grand Opera is that you can't deal in detail, or in fact, detail is of a different order to something that is more intimate and small’. Beard, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, 19.
23 Diary entry, Thursday, 3 April.
24 Diary entries, Friday, 4 April and Monday, 7 April. It seems that Birtwistle overruled this: ‘I just thought it was unnecessary. I mean, once you've killed the Minotaur, once you've got to the end of this bull dying, you can't … I mean, who cares? What does it tell him? David didn't like that, but he agreed to get rid of it.’ Birtwistle also stated that another individual killing scene had been considered too, this time of a young boy. It's not clear whether this would have come before or after the rape of the young girl. For both comments, see Beard, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, 15.
25 Diary entry, Monday, 3 March.
26 This resulted in a change in my programme essay, discussed below.
27 Diary entry, Saturday, 8 March.
28 Cross, Harrison Birtwistle, 17.
29 Diary entry, Monday, 7 April.
30 Matthew d'Ancona, ‘A Chilling Masterpiece’, Guardian, Wednesday, 16 April 2008.
31 Diary entry, Friday, 4 April. Beard's prediction, ‘The remains of the “wood-and-hide cow” Daedalus made for Pasiphae will be visible, and Ariadne will act out her mother coupling with the bull and her mother's birth pangs’ (Beard, ‘Birtwistle's Labyrinth’, 376) remained unfulfilled.
32 Diary entry, Wednesday, 12 April.
33 Diary entry, Monday, 3 March, and Birtwistle's admission that he changed the notes of one appearance of a refrain because Johan Reuter wanted him to.
34 Diary entry, Monday, 4 February.