Ariadne (poem) "and both story and verse have a breath-taking rapidity that is wholly admirable." He regretted, however, that Lucas had not used language in the modernist way, with obliqueness and ambiguity. "The Listener" did not share this regret: "While preserving the great metrical tradition," its reviewer wrote, ""Ariadne" is a continuous refreshment of it, and is free at once of archaic pedantries and modernist affectations." More recently, Simon Tidworth in "The Quest for Theseus" (1970) believed that making the Minotaur Minos in a bull-mask was "a real stroke of originality", but, comparing the two works, preferred Nikos Kazantzakis' drama "Κούρος, ή
The Minotaur (opera) recounts the circumstances surrounding the birth of her half-brother, the Minotaur: her mother's union with a white bull from the sea, which was either sent by Poseidon, or was the sea god himself in disguise. "Scene 5: The Labyrinth" The Innocents reach the heart of the labyrinth. The Minotaur is taunted by the chorus for his monstrous form and inability to speak. His first victim, a young woman, appears and the Minotaur gores and rapes her. Keres feed upon the body and sing of destruction. "Scene 6: The Minotaur Dreams" The Minotaur acquires the power of speech in his dreams.