Asterion is the seventh part of R. Murray Schafer’s Patria Cycle, which consists of twelve music dramas that explore the journey of two archetypal characters Wolf/Theseus and Princess of the Stars/Ariadne.

"My idea was that two principal characters, a man and a woman, would engage in a search for one another through a labyrinth of different cultures and social twistings almost as if they represented the split halves of the same being...They might return with various guises and different names but the quest for unity and the homeland they were seeking would always be the same."
–R. Murray Schafer, Patria: the Complete Cycle

In several of the works, including Asterion, the lovers’ quest is complicated by a third character—the Minotaur/Three-Horned Enemy—who symbolizes the forces of dark and light, good and evil, both in the world and within each individual

clockwise from upper left: The Enchanted Forest, The Palace of the Cinnabar Phoenix, The Princess of the Stars, RA

Because Asterion is based on a dynamic audience-performer relationship and an innovative rethinking of theatrical space, it has the potential to be the most ground-breaking work of the Patria Cycle.