The Royal Ballet and Opera: Phaedra + Minotaur

Linbury Theatre, Royal Ballet and Opera, London
February 6, 2025

Phaedra + Minotaur is a welcome revival of a small and perfectly formed evening of exceptional art. While opera and ballet share theatres across the world, they are seldom presented together, individual and equal as they are in this weighty programme.

Benjamin Britten’s Phaedra tells of the destruction of a human being by the caprice of the gods. It’s a tour de force for Christine Rice, who reaches deep to draw out emotions, shredded and bloodied, that no one should be forced to confront.

The set of unforgiving, brightly lit monochrome features the shrouded Minotaur and the boy, Hippolytus, seminal in her story. She is accompanied at the piano by musical director Richard Hetherington and the harshness of the percussive notes cuts like a knife as she bares her soul. Director, Deborah Warner, finds each nuance in the words even allowing a moment of humour, (or is it hysteria?) as Phaedra is drawn to her inevitable death.

In Minotaur, no words are needed to explain the intricacies of the myth. Choreographer Kim Brandstrup has all he needs in three remarkable dance artists and an eloquent dance language.

Brandstrup is assiduous in his choice of designers. Composer, Eilon Morris, has created a score that engages without overwhelming. It hints at a Crete lost in time but a people who are not unlike us today. Antony McDonald’s set: a black wall scarred by a jagged red slash, an opening high up and a bed below, matches in its simplicity.

There is interaction between all three characters, and it is in the duets that the language is most potent. Jonathan Goddard as Theseus must fight and kill the Minotaur, Tommy Franzén. Kristen McNally as Ariadne watches from above. She is the deformed creature’s half-sister and she has helped Theseus in his quest. The fight is fierce but strangely poetic in its slow-motion and lack of vicious intent.

The following duet, Goddard with McNally, covers a wealth of emotion as the desires of the couple rarely coincide. Theseus lust is quelled, and his attention wanders but Ariadne’s love has grown. In their duet and in McNally’s solo, the choreography is rich in invention and the dancers do it justice in outstanding performances.

The Deus ex Machina climax is cleverly conceived drawing on Franzén’s exceptional acrobatic skills as now he assumes the character of Dionysus. His duet with McNally is breath-taking in all the right ways. Franzén observes Ariadne’s abandonment from a god-like height and descends to her side defying gravity, on a wall conveniently studded with climbing pegs. The duet captures the mystery of a bond between mortal and divine. The confrontation is oblique rather than direct, the support and physical contact unusual and bringing a sense of otherworldliness to an extraordinary duet.

Both works are presented with such boldness and honesty that the power of the myths becomes as relevant to us today as it must have been to the ancients.