Opera Scotland

Minotaur The Minotaur

Tours by decade

Tours by location

Music

Julian Evans

Text

Allan Dunn

Source

Greek mythology

 

Premieres

First Performance: Glasgow (Theatre Royal), 14 May 2004.

First Performance in Scotland: As above.

Scottish Opera premiere: As above.

 

Background

Scottish Opera has a good record for commissioning and performing operas aimed at children. This piece was quite a successful example which toured widely round the country. It is not to be confused with the work of the same title that followed soon afterwards at Covent Garden with music by Sir Harrison Birtwistle to a text by David Harsent.

 

Main Characters

 

Plot Summary

King Minos is cursed by the gods to have a son, the Minotaur, who is half man, half bull, lives in a labyrinth and requires human sacrifice. Having defeated the Athenians he extracts tribute from King Aegeus, who is appalled when his son Theseus volunteers to go to Crete as one of the group to be sacrificed. However Ariadne falls for Theseus and gives him help to escape the labyrinth. He is eventually the last survivor among the Athenians, but succeeds in killing the Minotaur before making his escape with Ariadne. He forgets the pre-arranged signal agreed with his father to show he is alive, so when his ship is sighted with its black sail, instead of a white one, King Aegeus kills himself.