The Minotaur (opera) Opera House for five performances in early 2013, featuring most of the original cast, most notably Christine Rice, John Tomlinson, Andrew Watts and Johan Reuter. Birtwistle wrote the title role for John Tomlinson's voice. Tomlinson also created the role of the Green Knight in Birtwistle's 1990 opera "Gawain". Premiere production staff From the program notes:The Minotaur does not fully comprehend the duality of his physical nature as half-bull, half-man; only in sleep and, ultimately, in death does his human side become evident. Ariadne hopes that, with the help of the Oracle, she will enable Theseus to find a way out
Greek hero cult began to be told to individuate the persons who were now believed to be buried in these old and imposing sites", observes Robin Lane Fox. Greek hero-cults were distinct from the clan-based ancestor worship from which they developed, in that as the "polis" evolved, they became a civic rather than familial affair, and in many cases none of the worshipers traced their descent back to the hero any longer: no shrine to a hero can be traced unbroken from Mycenaean times. Whereas the ancestor was purely local, Lewis Farnell observed, the hero might be tended in more than one locality,