Phaedra + Minotaur create an interesting double bill at the Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden

Phaedra + Minotaur, The Royal Opera © 2025 Tristram Kenton

Written in 1975 and first performed by Dame Janet Baker at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1976, Benjamin Britten’s Phaedra was his final vocal work. He assembled the libretto from parts of a translation by Robert Lowell of Jean Racine’s 1677 play Phèdre, and the cantata sees the eponymous woman contemplate her death as things have completely fallen apart with her husband Theseus. This is due to her lust for his son and her stepson Hippolytus, who has died as an indirect result or her infatuation. 

It is presented on this occasion in a piano reduction created and performed by the Royal Opera’s Head of Music Richard Hetherington, and the arrangement proves to be particularly effective by virtue of feeling so minimalist and hence stark. At the beginning the act of each separate chord being sustained so that it creates an effect that feels akin to an aftershock is especially haunting. Deborah Warner’s staging similarly works to the idea that ‘less is more’, with designer Antony McDonald having opted for a bare stage that features nothing other than the piano and three objects (it would seem) that are covered in white sheets.

Phaedra is sung by Christine Rice whose mezzo-soprano is radiant, beautifully shaped and immensely feeling. Decked out in simple modern clothes and barefoot, she half staggers, half crawls on at the start, and tiny actions such as her fingers ‘tiptoeing’ across the stage to remove one of the sheets have an enormous impact. 

The degree to which Rice inhabits the role is remarkable as she ensures that she always keeps the emotional colour wheel turning. Often looking  physically and emotionally exhausted, things could hardly get worse for her when she removes one of the sheets to reveal the Minotaur’s body. Then as she discards the second with obvious apprehension, there is a palpable sense of relief when she discovers it hides a chair that bears her wedding shoes. In spite of everything, she cannot fail to glow when she thinks of Hippolytus (who turns out to be under the final sheet), though her expression is often of one who is past caring for the precise reason that everything is so dark. Perhaps the most shocking moment comes when we learn she has already drunk the Medean poison that will kill her, meaning there is no way out, but as she sings of her eyes giving up the light, the increasing luminescence of the stage’s white backdrop suggests she is going towards the heavenly light. 

Phaedra + Minotaur, The Royal Opera © 2025 Tristram Kenton

This Phaedra for the Royal Opera originally appeared as part of the lockdown era mixed programme 4/4. Warner then went on to programme it alongside Minotaur under her artistic direction at the Ustinov Studio in Bath, before both transferred to the Edinburgh International Festival. With the latter being a dance piece choreographed by Kim Brandstrup, this evening really is presented by the Royal Ballet and Opera.

Minotaur explores how Phaedra’s sister Ariadne betrays home and country to help her lover Theseus slay the Minotaur, only for him to abandon her. McDonald’s once again minimalist set creates a single area in which all of the drama can take place, and a red splash across a free standing backdrop could signify fire or blood. However, the fact that paint pots occupy the stage suggests it has been created with that substance, so it could allude to the home that Ariadne wishes to establish with Theseus now she has nobody else. The scenes, which are each given a (sometimes self-conscious) heading such as ‘Deus ex machina’, take us through Theseus’s defeat of the Minotaur, his subsequent departure from Naxos, Ariadne’s lament and the arrival of Dionysus. 

The part of Ariadne is shared across the run by Kristen McNally and Isabel Lubach, while Jonathan Goddard dances Theseus and Tommy Franzén the Minotaur and Dionysus. The steps are very graceful as the fight between Theseus and the Minotaur sees the latter momentarily ‘perch’ on one hand as his movements seem to have an air of capoeira about them. Things reach another level again when Franzén as Dionysus appears atop the vertical backdrop and then descends it. While this features indoor climbing-style footrests that allow him to do so, the manner in which he appears to dance, fall and fly down the face is immensely skilful. The emotions may feel as if they are expressed more in the physical movements of the performers than in the characters they are playing, but Eilon Morris’s sound design (the music is piped in) is highly effective and reveals a wide range of influences. 

With Phaedra lasting just twenty minutes and Minotaur around forty, this is one of the shortest nights you will ever spend at the Royal Ballet and Opera. It is, however, a case of quality over quantity, and one could not hope for a better performance space for these works than the Royal Opera House’s beautifully small Linbury Theatre. 

by Sam Smith

Phaedra + Minotaur | 6 - 11 February 2025 | Linbury Theatre, Royal Ballet and Opera, Covent Garden