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PERFORMANCE
INFORMATION

Conceived for broadcast television...

Menotti & Scene.jpg

NBC's Opera Theater broadcast. Gian Carlo Menotti introducing the performance. 

A prolific composer, Menotti wrote 25 operas which have enjoyed worldwide success, among them — Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Telephone, The Old Maid and the Thief, and The Medium, and LABYRINTH. This opera captured our imagination for two reasons — because it is a morality tale, or a “philosophical riddle”, as Menotti called it, and because it has never been performed professionally before a live American audience!

We are deeply excited to be premiering the first live American performance of Labyrinth!

Commissioned for television by NBC TV’s Opera Theater in 1963, LABYRINTH follows the ever more bizarre wanderings of a young couple on their honeymoon searching for their room in a strange hotel.  Menotti took advantage of the many special technical effects of movie filming to keep the TV audience riveted on the ever-increasing panic of the young couple as they roam the halls, meeting an assortment of dotty characters who give them surreal but useless advice in their search.  In the film, characters sing opera, peek through keyholes, and frolic in a swimming pool scene of debauchery.

 

Our challenge: how to convey Menotti’s ideas with only a stage, lights, voices, and no pool!

The audience's challenge: figuring out Menotti's riddle before the opera ends...

CAST BIOS

STAGE DIRECTOR'S NOTES

It is such a pleasure to offer this wonderful piece of music drama. Despite Menotti‘s development of the piece for television and his intention never to present it on stage, we have had a fun time bringing the story to life, so that you can be swept away by its provocations and challenges. In this Opera, or as Menotti calls it a “musical riddle”, we explore the Groom’s search for the key to his assigned room in the Grand Hotel. He gets questionable advice as to its whereabouts from the past, the present, the future, and different philosophical traditions embodied by the Old Man, the Executive Manager, the Astronaut, the Spy and the Bell Boy. Ultimately, he gets the most help from the love incarnate in his bride.

 

At the end, even that Love is denied him, and he seeks succor among the pleasures of the world only to find that they are a trap. Thankfully, in his last moments, he calls out for his love and is finally greeted by the smiling and welcoming face of Death. When he admits to having ‘nothing left’, at last he is given his long sought for key and ultimately his resting place with its hoped for peace.

I do hope that you enjoy riddling out this wonderful mystery play. It has been a great pleasure preparing it for you.

 

– Michael Meraw, Stage Director

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