Nearly 200 voices fill the stage in New Zealand Opera's epic Monster in the Maze. Photo / New Zealand Opera
Nearly 200 voices fill the stage in New Zealand Opera's epic Monster in the Maze. Photo / New Zealand Opera
THE FACTS
New Zealand Opera’s The Monster in the Maze features nearly 200 singers and musicians in a thrilling 50-minute performance.
Ipu Laga’aia, Sarah Castle and Joel Amosa lead the cast, with Maaka Pohatu as Minos.
Designers Bradley Gledhill and Rachel Marlow weave a versatile Pasifika backdrop for the action.
New Zealand Opera’s The Monster in the Maze is the stuff of which nightmares are made.
Jonathan Dove and Alasdair Middleton’s deft refashioning of the Minotaur legend as an allegory for our troubled times enlists almost 200 singers and musicians to deliver its warnings in a thrilling 50minutes.
Unlike some overseas concert hall performances, Monster is a gripping piece of theatre, with its contingents of adult, youth and children’s choruses energetically marshalled by director Anapela Polata’ivao, with creative producer Stacey Leilua and choreographer Petmal Petelo.
Three operatic protagonists – Ipu Laga’aia as the monster-slaying hero Theseus, Sarah Castle as his mother and Joel Amosa as Daedalus, the creator of the deadly maze – are pitted against the stentorian Maaka Pohatu as the blood-chilling tyrant, Minos.
Alas, much fine singing is thwarted by the absence of practical surtitles.
It would have been helpful if everything had been as easily deciphered as Laga’aia’s cheery greeting: “Hello everyone. What’s going on?”
Maaka Pohatu performs as King Minos in New Zealand Opera's Monster in the Maze. Photo / New Zealand Opera
The various choruses, coping impressively with Dove’s rhythmic demands, are expertly woven through dark and sometimes glittering orchestrations by conductor Brent Stewart.
Early on, an echo of Orff’s Carmina Burana alerts us to more witty references to come.
Ipu Laga'aia portrays Theseus. Photo / New Zealand Opera
The undoubted stars of the evening are designers Bradley Gledhill and Rachel Marlow, setting the action against versatile diagonal strips that create a very Pasifika weave.
One minute, their movement can evoke a terrifying maze; the next, they are a screen for video projections, accompanying the battle between hero and beast with comic-book blasts of “punch,” “clatter” and “stab”.
Unlike one overseas production which brought on an actor as minotaur, Theseus wields his weapon in a sea of red light whilst in the background. We see and hear his foe in the visceral sonics of 12 brass players, their instruments gleaming like the ominous teeth of a fearsome monster.
Yet, for all the imagination and professionalism of The Monster in the Maze, not to mention its admirable community involvement, 50 minutes passed much too quickly.
As a main-stage production, a complementary opening presentation would not have gone amiss.
