Minotaur Operas

Their latest offering, by regular producer The
Minotaur Music Theatre, was a clutch of operatic shorts, a programme that was cast
in roughly symphonic form.

 

Like any good opening movement, the first had a degree
of substantiality, with Gustav Holst’s 20-minute Savitri.  The composer stated that it should be
performed “in the open air or else a small building” and the Rosemary Branch
certainly obliged with the latter.

 

Sounding like Vaughan Williams with Wagnerian
overtones, the strength of the music is in the vocal lines, apt when accompanied
by piano rather than the intended 12 instrument chamber band.  Three strong principals (Joseph
Padfield, Natasha Day and David Menezes) made the most of this hypnotic tale
drawn from The Mahabharata, under Stuart Barker’s tight
direction.

 

The scherzo followed, with
Stephen Oliver’s musical joke The Waiter’s Revenge, played
downstairs in the pub to the bemusement of regular drinkers. It’s a slight,
wordless, unaccompanied piece of puff (the “music” consists of hums, padadas
and lalas) which is fun but starts to wear thin even before its 10 minutes are
up.

 

It was then back up to the main house for a trio of
Weill songs (two of the Broadway numbers and Der
Dreigroschenoper’s “Pirate Jenny”) and then another chunkier episode
with Hindemith’s chromatic not-quite-palindrome Hin und
Zuruck.  This fascinating
miniature describes a tragic domestic dispute, which is played out and then
rewound to the beginning.

 

To stretch the symphonic image a wee bit further, the
thematic material of the first movement (death reversed) was developed in this
finale, as the murdered wife picks herself up and works her way back to a
cheerful entrance. 

 

Louise Lloyd and Ben Thapa played the warring
couple with panache, while the piano accompaniment was played skillfully by MD
Genevieve Ellis (the earlier works were performed with ample flair by Eunjung
Lee).

– Simon Thomas