Labyrinth is an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 in one act by composer Gian Carlo Menotti

Gian Carlo Menotti

Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...

. The work was commissioned for television by the NBC Opera Theatre

NBC Opera Theatre

The NBC Opera Theatre was an American opera company operated by the National Broadcasting Company from 1949 to 1964. The company was established specifically for the purpose of filming both established and new operas for television...

 and uses an English language libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by the composer. Unlike Menotti's previous television operas, such as Amahl and the Night Visitors

Amahl and the Night Visitors

Amahl and the Night Visitors is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer. It was commissioned by NBC and first performed by the NBC Opera Theatre on December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, where it was broadcast...

, this opera was written with no intention of being moved to live stage performance later. Menotti intended for this work to utilize the special effects unique to television which could not be recreated in live theatre. As a result, NBC's television production of the opera is the only performance the work has received. At its premiere in March 1963 the opera was mainly criticized by the press for its trite use of allegory and music which rejected the avante garde in favour of romanticism. Critic Harold C. Schonberg

Harold C. Schonberg

Harold Charles Schonberg was an American music critic and journalist, most notably for The New York Times. He was the first music critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism...

 stated in his review in The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

that,

"Menotti falls back on the procedures he has always used: the scraps of canonic immitation, the stretches of parlando, the Puccini like melodies, the banal waltz themes... [It] ended up an allegory that had all the dimension of a Mobius strip: an example of slick television and cinema of the 1960s wedded pretty much to music of the 1890s... On the whole Labyrinth is one of the thinnest musical concoctions Menotti has ever put together.

However, Schonberg did praise the quality of both the acting and singing given by the performers. The cast included John Reardon as The Bridegroom, Judith Raskin

Judith Raskin

Judith Raskin was an American lyric soprano, renowned for her fine voice as well as her acting.Raskin was born in New York to Harry A. Raskin, a high school music teacher, and Lillian Raskin, a grade school teacher. Her father aroused her childhood interest in music, leading her to study violin...

 as The Bride, Elaine Bonazzi as The Spy, Robert White as The Old Chess Player, Beverly Wolff

Beverly Wolff

Beverly Wolff was an American mezzo-soprano who had an active career in concerts and operas from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. She performed a broad repertoire which encompassed operatic and concert works in many languages and from a variety of musical periods...

 as The Executive Director, Bob Rickner as The Executive Director's Secretary, Frank Porretta as The Astronaut, Leon Lishner

Leon Lishner

Leon Lishner was an American operatic bass-baritone. He was particularly associated with the works of Gian Carlo Menotti, having created parts in the world premieres of four operas by that composer...

 as Death, John West as Death's Assistant, Nikiforos Naneris as The Bellboy, and Eugene Green as The Italian Opera Singer. Kirk Browning

Kirk Browning

Kirk Browning was an American television director and producer who had hundreds of productions to his credit, including 185 broadcasts of Live from Lincoln Center....

 directed the production with Herbert Grossman

Herbert Grossman

Herbert Grossman was an American conductor who was chiefly known for his work within opera and musical theatre.-Early life and education:...

 serving as conductor, Noel Taylor

Noel Taylor

Noel Taylor was an American costume designer of the stage, television, and film. A four-time Emmy nominee, Taylor won an Emmy Award in 1978 for his designs for the PBS drama Actor: The Paul Muni Story....

as costume designer, and Warren Clymer as set designer.