Opera: The Minotaur, Royal Opera House, London

Published on Thursday 17 April 2008 20:40

The Minotaur, Royal Opera House, London ****

FROM Theseus and Orpheus to King Kong and Gawain's headless Green Knight, myths and monsters have always been the mainstays of Harrison Birtwistle's work, so in his new opera about the half-man/half-bull he is doggedly ploughing the same furrow.

This is an oddly appropriate myth for a man in his 70s, but still at the height of his powers: the ageing Picasso saw himself as a Minotaur, too. But while Picasso's "tauromachy" self-portraits – which inspired Birtwistle's opera – reflect a nagging fear of failing potency, no such fear is to be sensed in this dark, threatening, and absolutely assured work.

In his choice of his fellow-Lancastrian John Tomlinson as the Minotaur, Birtwistle has turned up trumps. We have to wait nearly an hour before we encounter him – in a circus-like lair surrounded by masked onlookers – but from the moment he appears, with the bull-mask surmounting a muddied, half-naked body, we believe in him.

This opera is a grand spectacle. The drama is both wonderful and dreadful as the beast rapes and gores his victims, while the crowd intones a drugged and ecstatic chorale which is brutally shattered by a screeching chorus of winged furies. Here the music's crazy momentum – dominated by bass clarinets, lower brass and thunderous percussion – displays Birtwistle's talents at magnificently full stretch. There may be longueurs in the Theseus-Ariadne sub-plot, but Alison Chitty's designs are so stylish, and the excellent cast perform with such conviction, that criticism is disarmed. This is the most powerful and original opera yet to have emerged this century.