The Minotaur...

In my previous life as a community and fringe theatre director and writer I was very much an angry young man. And that angry young man fervently believed it was the job of the arts to reflect and appeal to the majority of taxpayers whose taxes funded it rather than solely appeal the middle-class minorities who regularly patronised places like regional repetory theatres, the RSC and the National.

And much of that thinking still pervades my views on the arts and arts subsidy to this day so consequently I am not and never will be a cheerleader for opera. Huge ticket prices, hugely subsidised and hugely expensive to produce, it would never get my vote. Also my only live opera experience was watching Verdi's Il Trovatore at the Bregenz Opera Festival in Austria and, great spectacle though it was, it didn't really float my boat. And I found it quite difficult to follow.

To my thinking opera is the arts version of polo. A fun time for poshos who like that type of thing...

But on Saturday I saw the last night of the Harrison Birtwhistle opera The Minotaur and it really knocked me on my arse. It's true that the only reason I went and had begrudgingly shelled out £65 for a ticket was because the Missus's poet dad had written the libretto, and it's also true that the Royal Opera House with its ridiculously flash champagne bar and poshos in attendance did little to dampen my anti-opera prejudices.

But the opera itself was utterly stunning and, even better from my more-or-less opera virgin point of view, was high art in massively accessible form without sacrificing any of its artistic integrity.

Based on the Greek myth the story if simple enough. Theseus heads to Crete to defeat the monstrous Minotaur and free his people from an obligation which means his father's kingdom has to send a boatload of virgins to sacrifice in the Minotaur's labyrinth every year. Meeting him in Crete is Ariadne who helps Theseus enter the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.

But composer Birthwhistle and librettist Harsent's version shows Theseus as a calculating hero who strikes a treacherous agreement with Ariadne to kill her half-brother the Minotaur, while the Minotaur himself is shown as a beast in a constant state of war with his human side over his lusts and bloodlust. Bizarrely the latter is the most sympathetic character in the entire piece.

It's a clever reworking of the myth and the discordant music and the quite spartan libretto mean the piece rocks along without ever feeling rushed. John Tomlinson was suitably torn and sympathetic as the Minotaur, Johan Reuter was a cold and believable killer as Theseus and Christine Rice was calculating and believably ruthless as Ariadne.

She and Tomlinson were also incredible singers and his last lament as he dies in the labyrinth and her opening piece and another where she describes the birth of the Minotaur were knock-you-on-your-arse stunning.

So there we go. Modern opera. I'm possibly a convert. I've certainly spunked £65 on many worse evenings out.