The Minotaur, Royal Opera, Covent Garden, review

There’s long been a hue and cry to call The Emperor’s New Clothes on Harrison Birtwistle’s music. I am disinclined to join this effort to debunk: one must respect and admire a composer of such integrity, so assured in his technique and so steadfast and confident in his imaginative journey.

But as this excellent revival of his most recent opera The Minotaur has confirmed, I simply cannot enjoy – let alone love – the sound world he creates. The brutal wilful primitivism which governs it, the obsession with games, rituals and inexorable cyclical repetition, the relentless aggression, the lack of any wit, charm or gentler aspect of humanity – all this amounts to a vision of life I find repellent.

The Minotaur has a perhaps overly poetic libretto by David Harsent which retells the story of the meeting of Theseus and Ariadne. It is a tale of deceit and betrayal, as desperate Ariadne colludes in Theseus’s killing of her monstrous eponymous half-brother, trapped in the labyrinth where he is annually ordained to slaughter sacrificial Athenians.

The body count is higher than Django Unchained, and the score revels in the gore: it groans, it grunts, it shrieks, it thumps and stabs. It does, of course, have episodes of bleakly thrilling magnificence, notably the stunning (and brilliantly calibrated) first scene in the labyrinth, where the chanting onlookers both taunt and goad the Minotaur as he embarks on his massacre. And in the opera’s last moments, as the dying Minotaur assumes a tragic dignity, Birtwistle proves that he can write powerfully and expressively for the human voice.

But Theseus and Ariadne never engage one’s sympathy or interest, and too much of the rest of the score made me feel I was being repeatedly cuffed round the head by some implacable musical interrogator. You like Donizetti? You listen to Massenet in the bath? You hum and whistle Abba? Why?

The Royal Opera’s performance, authoritatively conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth, is beyond the normal canons of praise. Stephen Langridge’s immaculately rehearsed production is pitch-perfect in its clean-lined austerity, and Christine Rice (Ariadne), John Tomlinson (Minotaur), Johan Reuter (Theseus) as well as Elisabeth Meister and Andrew Watts in small roles, are all superb.

A fullish house, noticeably younger in its constituency than usual, responded with enthusiasm. But I wonder how many people left the theatre feeling comforted, enlightened or exalted.

Until Jan 28. Tickets: 020 7304 4000, roh.org.uk