The Monster is coming: NZ Opera’s thrilling community opera
Imagine the legendary Minotaur as an off-stage brass band, growling out of sight. As the Monster comes closer, its sonic representation moves gradually closer to the stage, each time louder and more menacing. When the Minotaur finally appears, the band is also on stage, “ridiculously loud”, says conductor Brent Stewart. “It’s one of the most awesome uses of instruments in the opera.”
The opera is English composer Jonathan Dove's The Monster in the Maze, composed to a libretto by Alasdair Middleton and soon to be presented by New Zealand Opera in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. It tells the ancient Greek story of Minos, king of Crete, who decrees that the Athenians must provide their young people as sacrifices to feed his monster, the Minotaur, half-man, half bull. Athenian hero, Theseus, travels with the young people to Crete, slays the Minotaur and brings the young people home.
The first productions of The Monster in the Maze were a decade ago. Sir Simon Rattle, who directed the work in Germany, France and England – it was co-commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, Aix-en-Provence Festival and the London Symphony Orchestra – described the extraordinary opera then as "very apropos of the moment".
Sir Simon Rattle conducting The Monster in the Maze at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2015
Photo: Supplied
"It reminds us," Rattle said in 2015, "of people making desperate boat journeys, people losing their children, people trying to find their children who are in mortal danger." Ten years later, after many productions in many languages around the world, it seems, sadly, that this powerful work has lost none of its global relevance.
New Zealand audiences encountered the operatic world of Jonathan Dove last year in NZ Opera's production of his chamber work, Mansfield Park. Dove, a storyteller through the singing voice, has composed over 30 operas, which vary widely in scope, subject matter and resources. Many have moved the art form out of the opera house into venues ranging from a shopping mall to a village church. Dove has also combined professional opera singers and orchestral musicians with community singers and instrumentalists in many works, including The Monster in the Maze.
Singers in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland have been preparing for The Monster for weeks. Some are adult professionals, singing the solo roles of the main characters, or adult chorus roles. Many are amateurs, individuals or members of community choirs, including teenagers and children, who have signed up to participate.
Conductor Brent Stewart leads a wananga for community singers in Wellington
Image: supplied
One weekend recently I slipped into the back of a wananga (workshop) at Wellington’s Te Auaha. I found myself in a room full of excellent voices, young and older, rehearsing their chorus parts for The Monster in the Maze. At the front of the room, behind a big keyboard with a rolling score projected behind him, Stewart was in charge, good-humoured and energetic as always, encouraging everyone to make the most of Dove’s lively, rhythmic score.
The multi-talented Stewart is playing many roles in this NZ Opera production. He’ll conduct the performances in Wellington and Auckland, he’s been training all the choirs, child, youth and adult, and has played a big role in preparing innovative learning materials for the singers. Unusually, no-one at that chorus wananga was holding a score.
“I sang all the tenor and bass parts, and created a midi backing of the orchestral parts,” Stewart explains. “My colleague Rachel Sutherland in Auckland recorded all the women’s and children’s parts. Then, using software that’s been developed by [NZ Opera’s General Director] Brad Cohen’s company, we’ve created an amazing learning hub that our community singers can log on to and learn their parts, seeing the score scrolling in real time, isolating voice parts to hear only the alto part, for instance. They can slow it down or speed it up, and watch the score scrolling, and a video recording of Brad Cohen on the screen conducting. It’s incredibly useful.”
Conductor Brent Stewart
“Conducting is where I think I’ve got the most to offer.”
Image credit: Profile Photos Wellington
NZ Opera has just announced Stewart’s appointment as the company’s 2025 Friedlander Foundation Associate Artist. The position acknowledges his extraordinary musical versatility. Stewart can be found on the podium with orchestras or choirs, including directing Wellington’s Orpheus since 2014. He’s equally at home in the orchestral percussion section, plays timpani with several professional orchestras and is sometimes tucked away in a background studio as audio and video producer for live streams. He’s also an arranger of music, and was involved in that role for the recent New Zealand hit movie Tinā. He fills all these roles with admirable musicianship, easy facility and unfailing good humour, and it’s little wonder that his free-lance career took off in 2020 after 10 years in the secondary school classroom.
The position with NZ Opera allows Stewart to pursue his first love, conducting. “It’s where I think I’ve got the most to offer,” he says modestly. “I’ve got the skills, but it’s sometimes hard to be credible in that space if you haven’t had many opportunities and experiences. It’s a really lovely chance to immerse myself more deeply in opera, maybe internationally as well.” NZ Opera are exploring ways for Stewart to work with Opera Australia as part of his development programme.
Working alongside Stewart in The Monster rehearsal room is Anapela Polata'ivao, the production’s Director. Polata'ivao recently captured audiences around Aotearoa with her compelling performance in the lead role in the movie Tinā. A highly experienced actor and director, one who has worked for more than two decades on and off stage, in front and behind the cameras, Polata'ivao tells me she was attracted to Dove’s opera “because of the opportunities it provides for full community engagement, for people who have no prior on-stage experience.” The music was also a draw card. “It’s catchy and precise – and it sticks in your head for days!”
Director Anapela Polata'ivao
“…attracted to Dove’s opera by “the opportunities it provides for full community engagement.”
Image credit: Andi Crown
She’s relishing working with the large ensembles in each city. “Some were a little tentative at first, but by the second day you could feel the room relax as people enjoyed the company and the music. My objective is creating an environment that encourages people not to take themselves too seriously, to let go, have fun – and, of course, do the homework.”
Thinking of Maestro Rattle’s comments on the work’s contemporary relevance, I ask Polata'ivao how she is bringing the past and the present together in the production. “Some themes from the Greek story are still alive and well today,” she tells me. “When I first read the libretto, my immediate thoughts were of the thousands of starving children in Palestine. It was the declaration of the King that the youth of Athens be sacrificed for the Minotaur to feed upon, killing the future of Athens, that took me there. ‘Prey for the Minotaur! For the beast to feed upon.’”
These thoughts have informed the visual approach to the work, which also has Pacific elements and migration themes. In the opera’s narrative, the young Athenians journey from their warm, familiar homeland to the cold, unforgiving land of Crete. In this production, that journey symbolises the migration experience of many Pacific people who journey from their island homes to the urban centres of Aotearoa New Zealand. “Our version of Athens is a palette of warmth with an open space where bodies move freely,” explains Polata'ivao. “Contrasting that is Crete with a darker palette and partitioned space with projected sky-scrapers.”
Chorus member Tara Randall and other young singers rehearsing at a weekend wananga for The Monster in the Maze
Image credit: Helen Beswick
Aotearoa’s cultural tapestry has rich Pasifika heritages woven into its fabric, and the choruses for The Monster and the Maze include many Pacific singers and community choirs. Creative producer Stacey Leilua, who is of Samoan, Māori and English heritage, describes as “really awesome and inspiring” the opportunity for these community singers to work under Polata'ivao’s direction and sing alongside professional Samoan opera singers like Lexus Song Quest winner bass-baritone Joel Amosa and tenor Ipu Laga’aia, who plays the hero Theseus.
Ultimately, The Monster in the Maze is for and about community. Dove told me last year that he believes “we are all capable of doing extraordinary things” if we work communally. “It’s that feeling of achievement and the realisation that there’s more inside us that we normally have the opportunity to release.” Referring to the challenge of rehearsing the large ensembles, Polata'ivao says simply “it’s worth remembering who the show is being made for, and why.”
New Zealand Opera The Monster in the Maze by composer Jonathan Dove and librettist Alasdair Middleton, with Brent Stewart and Brad Cohen (conductors), Anapela Polata'ivao (director), Stacey Leilua (creative producer), Sarah Castle (Mother), Joel Amosa (Daedalus), Ipu Laga’aia (Theseus) and Maaka Pohatu (Minos).
Ōtautahi/Christchurch 5-6 September, with Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington 12-13 September, with NZ Symphony Orchestra
Tāmaki Makarau/Auckland 19-20 September, with Auckland Philharmonia
More information and bookings here