This intriguing double bill is not without its difficulties, in that opera lovers will attend for the Phaedra cantata, composed for Janet Baker in the 1970s as Benjamin Britten was dying. Conversely, dance lovers will attend for Kim Brandstrup’s choreographically complex account of Theseus’ killing of the Minotaur with the aid of Phaedra’s sister Ariadne, and his subsequent abandoning of her on the island of Naxos. Having staged Phaedra for The Royal Opera as part of a quadruple bill, Deborah Warner programmed it alongside Minotaur, commissioned from Brandstrup as a double bill for the Ustinov space in Bath. It was then given at the Edinburgh Festival, and is now staged in the Linbury for its first appearance in London.
Britten’s body of work ranges from the accessibly tuneful to the less easily listenable, but if you put in the effort to hear and re-hear it you will always be rewarded by a blindingly intense glimpse into the tortured soul of an artist. This intuition of mine was borne out by the many comments about “discordance” and “absence of melody” I overheard in the interval, from those (I think the majority) who had come for the dance rather than the song. This saddened me, as the cantata is a work of superb musicianship that truly brings a tragic story (text by Robert Lowell after Racine) to life.
Phaedra’s guilt and self-hatred, caused by her disastrous but overwhelming lust for Hippolytus, the son of her husband Theseus, are searingly depicted in the music, interpreted here with devastating vocal skill and insight by Christine Rice. She crawls onto the stage blindfolded (blinded by lust) and proceeds to tell her story, as if unloading it into the universe before her death. Rather than await Theseus’ vengeance she takes “Medea’s poison”, grippingly describing the resultant sensations of freezing in her boiling veins and squeezing in her heart. There are surtitles but they are superfluous thanks to Rice’s clarity of diction. Her dramatic performance is staged on a monochrome set by Antony McDonald, the white backcloth cleverly lit by Chris Wilkinson after Adam Silverman, with only a grand piano on stage (played with admirable sincerity and sensitivity by music director Richard Hetherington) and three shapes shrouded in white sheets. These are gradually uncovered by Phaedra to reveal the body of the Minotaur, her own wedding shoes on an orange plastic chair, and the body of Hippolytus. Phaedra wraps herself in Hippolytus’s shroud, inhaling the lingering odours of his body, covering herself with it as she dies. A stunning work, stunningly performed.
Kim Brandstrup’s Minotaur acts as a kind of prequel, the story divided into five “chapters”: Combat, Seduction, Departure, Lament and Deus ex Machina, each mood reflected in Eilon Morris’ varied score, which veers from electronica to classicism whilst referencing ethnic music. We’re on Naxos, where Theseus has killed the Minotaur and Ariadne awaits the hoped-for reward of love and loyalty; as the lights come up we see a giant black wall, hosting a violent slash of blood-red paint. Ariadne is framed in a portal high in the wall, Dionysus recumbent on the top of it, and Theseus prowls the stage with paintbrush in hand, contemplating his artwork.
Dionysus (Tommy Franzén) disappears and returns as the Minotaur to fight out the battle to the death with Theseus (Jonathan Goddard). This is beautifully choreographed as a powerfully athletic wrestling match, danced with thrilling theatricality by Franzén and Goddard. The Seduction pas de deux is also exquisitely made, with fluid, lyrical lifts and entwinings and touching moments on the bed as Theseus repeatedly attempts to leave and Ariadne tenderly tries to stop him, adding to the heartbreak of the Departure and Lament sections. In Deus ex Machina we see Dionysus’ return, descending down the wall by means of just-visible footholds. He proceeds to seduce Ariadne, the supreme confidence of the immortal God contrasting with her meek, almost subservient humanity.
The performances here are outstanding. Jonathan Goddard is among the most charismatic performers on stage today, and Franzén, with his background in hip hop as well as contemporary dance, is a versatile, acrobatic dancer whose body seems to have no boundaries. Kristen McNally gives a performance of heartrending but somehow genteel intensity; her Ariadne is serenely malleable, a pawn in the desires of two lovers, one human, one the God of indulgence. She brings a gorgeous fluidity to the two pas de deux, drifting between weightlessness and heavy despair.
These are two individual works worth seeking out. I would very much like to see Minotaur given alone, perhaps as an expanded work telling the whole story including that of Phaedra, and of her mother Pasiphaë’s affair with the bull that resulted in the Minotaur. That would be quite an event.
