The Minotaur (opera) The Minotaur (opera) The Minotaur is an opera in two acts, with 13 scenes by English composer Harrison Birtwistle to a libretto by poet David Harsent, commissioned by the Royal Opera House in London. The work, a retelling of the Greek myth of the Minotaur, premiered at the Royal Opera House on 15 April 2008. The score is modernistic, and the scenes fall into three types: bullfights; scenes between Ariadne and Theseus; and dream sequences for the Minotaur, in which the creature has the gift of speech. The opera lasts about 140 minutes. The opera was revived at the Royal
Bacchus and Ariadne (poem) Ariadne" was toned down and contained a "sociability" that was mentioned in the preface of Hunt's "Foliage". When placed into a sequence following "Hero and Leander", the "Bacchus and Ariadne" is a consolation to the themes of the first. Bacchus is able to save Ariadne, whereas no one was able to save Hero. Hunt relied on the story from Ovid's "Heroides" to base his poem, but Hunt describes an end result to the story that Ovid leaves untold. A major connection between Hunt's and Ovid's version is that they begin at sunrise. Ovid uses the sunrise to show that Ariadne