A terrific achievement: professionals & amateurs come together at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre performing Jonathan Dove’s The Monster in the Maze in celebration of Music in the Round at 40

Jonathan Dove: The Monster in the Maze – Anthony Flaum & youth chorus – Music in the Round (Photo: Andy Brown)

Jonathan Dove: The Monster in the Maze; Anthony Flaum Camille Maalawy, Robert Gildon, Paul Hawkyard, Music in the Round, Sheffield Music Hub, director: Rosie Kat, music director: John Lyon; Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
Reviewed 1 November 2024

The first UK performance of Dove’s community opera since its UK premiere in 2015 in a magnificent achievement celebrating Music in the Round’s 40th birthday with ‘an epic opera for the people of Sheffield and with the people of Sheffield’

Music in the Round has been producing chamber music concerts for 40 years with the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre as its flagship. As part of the 40th birthday celebrations Music in the Round joined forces with Sheffield Music Hub to present Jonathan Dove‘s The Monster in the Maze at the Crucible Theatre with four performances over two days (1 & 2 November) and I caught the evening performance on 1 November 2024. 

The featured adult, youth and children’s choruses drawn from Sheffield Youth Choirs (Junior Voices, Youth Voice & Concordia) along with singers from Sheffield. The orchestra featured the Consone Quartet (Music in the Round’s artists in residence), Ensemble 360 (Music in the Round’s resident ensemble) and the Bridge Ensemble (musicians from Music in the Round’s scheme which supports emerging artists underrepresented in chamber music), along with Sheffield Music Hub Senior Strings and amateur musicians from Sheffield.

Singers Anthony Flaum, Camille Maalawy and Robert Gildon played Theseus, Mother and Daedalus, with actor Paul Hawkyard as King Minos. The music director was John Lyon, a music leader for Sheffield Music Hub. The original opera had no upper string parts so Lyon worked with Jonathan Dove to create these so that the whole of Sheffield Music Hub Senior Strings could take part.

Jonathan Dove: The Monster in the Maze – Robert Gildon, Anthony Flaum & youth chorus – Music in the Round (Photo: Andy Brown)

The director was Rosie Kat with designs by Fenna de Jonge and lighting by Kati Hind. Fashion students from Sheffield College created the chorus costumes and the minotaur, whilst production arts students were part of the production team.

The performance was in the round, with orchestra at the rear and audience on three sides of the central acting area, and the adult choir placed antiphonally in the auditorium. Music for the minotaur was played by a separate 13-piece brass ensemble above and behind the audience with the players only lit when they were playing. Paul Hawkyard’s King Minos declaimed from a balcony. The opera uses multiple different group and Rosie Kat’s production made very effective use of the whole space.

Written in 2015 for Simon Rattle, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the opera features a libretto by Alasdair Middleton which retells the story of Theseus and the Minotaur in an approachable and effective fashion, with a great deal of humour. In this version, there is no love interest, no Ariadne, but Daedalus, the creator of the labyrinth has been locked in there by King Minos and helps Theseus and the Athenian youths. Theseus also has a Mother who is reluctant for him to go to Crete.

Jonathan Dove: The Monster in the Maze – adult chorus – Music in the Round (Photo: Andy Brown)

Jonathan Dove very effectively for his disparate forces, giving each of the performing groups appropriate and enjoyable music. The adult chorus was prominent in the opening and closing scenes set in Athens, the singers stationary in the auditorium but certainly not static, forming a highly effective backdrop to the action. I was particularly taken with the scene when Theseus (Anthony Flaum) and the Youths approached the labyrinth and the adult chorus donned masks and luminous gloves for a terrific passage combining rhythmic speech with untuned percussion.

The youth choir were required to do a lot of the heavy lifting of the drama and were present almost throughout the opera, with the scenes in Crete involving them in a central role. The 19 performers really rose to the challenge, giving a convincing performance and dealing deftly with Dove’s writing including various solo passages.

There was a children’s chorus too, the contributions seemed to involve both singing and artworks, with two or three moments in the spotlight. Then at the end, Dove brought all his forces together. One of the traits of his community work is his knack of writing enjoyable singable and appropriate lines for groups of different ages and abilities and then drawing them all together in a highly satisfying ensemble. And this is how the opera rather movingly ended, with one communal ensemble.

Jonathan Dove: The Monster in the Maze – John Lyon, adult chorus, orchestra Music in the Round (Photo: Andy Brown)

Anthony Flaum was a vigorous and engaging Theseus, sympathetically leading but not dominating the youth chorus, and responding to the drama with fine heroic tone. But what everyone will remember is his illuminated sword! Camille Maalawy was Theseus’ Mother, highly effective and touching in her scene where she begged her son not to go, then joined by the children’s chorus for a poignant farewell.

Robert Gildon was the vigorous and highly active Daedalus, a relatively compact role yet Gildon made Daedalus a noticeable, anxious figure. Paul Hawkyard was the magnificently over the top King Minos, declaiming his verse in stirring melodrama.

The minotaur was given physical presence when the beast finally appeared in front of the Youths (and ate one) by some extremely imaginative designs, but it was the sound of the minotaur that really thrilled with the brass group (horns, trombones and tubas) producing music that stirred in just the right way, dark and threatening. 

Dove’s orchestration made very effective use of the wide range of orchestral colours available to him, this was a vivid score, vividly played. The main orchestra involved significant amounts of percussion (five percussionists). The result was full of different colours, effectively underpinning the drama. The whole ensemble led effectively by John Lyon, who managed to be much more than the necessary traffic policeman.

The whole performance was a terrific achievement. The Crucible is not the most acoustically sympathetic space, but Rosie Kat’s production used the whole auditorium with bravura. We, the audience, were close to and surrounded by the drama, giving the performance real immediacy. The non-professional performers were entirely unphased by this and I was particularly impressed by the way the youth chorus grasped the drama despite being in such close proximity to the audience.

Jonathan Dove: The Monster in the Maze – Music in the Round (Photo: Andy Brown)