[Language: French]

Commissioned by the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the London Symphony Orchestra. Libretto by Alasdair Middleton
First premiere of the French version, French adaptation by Alain Perroux.

The King of Crete has defeated Greece. He imposes a terrible tribute on the vanquished population: each year the city of Athens has to send young men who will be thrown into Dedalus’s labyrinth and eventually be devoured by the beast locked up in it, the notorious minotaur, half-man, half-bull. Appropriating this epic drama, British composer Jonathan Dove has written an opera for the young and the old, interpreted by a handful of soloists, a youth orchestra that will be trained with the help of the London Symphony Orchestra musicians, and 300 amateur choristers from the region of Aix, including children, teenagers and adults. Conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, all embark on an adventure which promises to breathe much life and spirit into this great mythological saga. A pedagogical project par excellence, this performance will be the culmination of a series of workshops for amateur choristers, organised throughout the year by the Festival’s Passerelles department.

Minos, king of the island of Crete, has a labyrinth in his palace in which he keeps the Minotaur, a monster – half man and half bull – which feeds on human flesh. To press home a military victory over Athens, Minos decrees that the Athenians should provide a regular supply of their young people to be sacrificed to the monster. The Athenian hero Theseus joins one of these shiploads, slays the Minotaur, and sails home with the Athenian youths.

Minos decrees that the Athenians should provide a regular supply of their young people to be sacrificed to the monster. The Athenian hero Theseus steps in, determined to enter the maze and take on the monster at its heart…

Direction: Simon Rattle (Music Conductor), Marie-Eve Signeyrole (Staging)
Cast: London Symphony Orchestra & Orchestre des jeunes de la Méditerranée, Damien Bigourdan (Theseus), Lucie Roche (Mother), Miloud Khétib (Minos), Damien Pass (Daedalus)