The Minotaur at the Royal Opera House, London ★★★★ The story of Theseus and the Minotaur is so old it was already ancient when Plutarch wrote it down. It is one of the oldest stories we teach our children, much older than the Christian religion. A strange choice of subject, then, for a modernist composer to base an opera on, the more so because Harrison Birtwistle's The Minotaur does not, like Joyce's Ulysses, transpose the story into the modern world, or find contemporary echoes in it. On … [Read more...]