The Monster in the Maze is a modern opera written by English composer Jonathan Dove with a libretto by Alasdair Middleton. It is one hour long and is a community opera which means many of the chorus and musicians are not professional singers or performers.
The story itself is the infamous Ancient Greek tale about Theseus (Ipu Laga’aia) and his battle with the Minotaur, a fearsome beast that lives in a labyrinth and likes to eat people.
The back story is that Minos (Maaka Pohata), the King of Crete is furious with the city state of Athens because his son was killed there after being ordered to fight a bull. Being the son of the god Zeus, Minos asks his dad to bring down plagues and all sorts of nastiness on people of Athens and therefore now has dominion over them. He gets an architect called Daedalus to build an underground labyrinth and imprisons a Minotaur in there.
In case you don’t know, the Minotaur is a human/bovine hybrid with a man’s body and a bull’s head and just happens to be the offspring of Minos’s wife and, yes, a bull. Given his wife’s particular form of infidelity, it’s not really surprising the King had her somewhat unusual child locked underground.
Now Minos is a very bad dude with a massively boastful ego and displays pretty unpleasant genocidal tendencies. Every year, he demands that Athens send seven boys and seven girls to him so that they can be put into the labyrinth and eaten by the Minotaur. What’s not explained is why a bull would prefer meat over grass and we never find out what it eats for the rest of the year.
As the opera opens Minos is boasting of his triumph over Athens and insisting they send him his annual tribute. In a real dick move, he mansplains over and over again how they are losers who must live in permanent submission and he is all powerful.
Naturally the Athenians are heartbroken, but they send the kids off to Crete anyway. But this time, despite protests from his mother (Sarah Castle), the young warrior Theseus (Ipu Laga’aia) is going to go with them and promises to kill the beast.
The ship departs and before long the youthful fodder and are in the labyrinth and trying to hide from the monster. In the tunnels, they encounter Daedalus (Joel Amosa) who was imprisoned in the labyrinth because it was he who introduced Minos’s wife to the bull in the first place. He teams up with the group to help them defeat the monster.
Somehow, Theseus has managed to get a machete through security and engages in battle with the Minotaur and kills it. The death of the creature seems to render the entire army of Crete impotent and the Athenians with Theseus sail back home without any resistance.
As it’s only an hour long, the action fairly whips along and proves to be quite a gripping story. The music is engaging and suited to the different types of scene. It gets engaging during the battle between monster and man, and very emotional when the Athenians are leaving for Crete and their families are grieving. The three singing leads are very strong, and Laga’aia delivers a very powerful and charming portrayal of the show’s leading man. Pohatu manages to create a very believable megalomaniac with the perfect mix of psychotic boastfulness and cruelty.
The chorus is split into three – adults, adolescents, and young children and all three harmonise very well. There was a palpable emotional depth to their singing which was very moving.
The set consisted of moveable panels which had imagery, words, symbols and colours projected on to them which suited the mood of each scene. We never got to see the Minotaur in the flesh, it’s eyes instead projected on the panels provided the context of the creature. All up this design was flexible and stylish.
The Monster in the Maze is an intriguing opera that proves the oldest of stories can prove as relevant and exciting as ever.
👉 See my interview with Sarah Castle about the opera
Photo credit – Emma Brittenden
THE MONSTER IN THE MAZE
Christchurch 5-6 September 2025
Wellington 12-13 September 2025
Auckland 19-20 September 2025