Opera of the Week – Britten’s turn of the Screw
OperaTonight’s Opera – Britten’s Turn of the Screw
This week’s streamed opera from OperaVision is Britten’s The Turn of the Screw based on the Henry James’ ghost story. The La Monnaie/Munt production is by German director Andrea Breth and the British conductor Ben Glassberg.
The Plot: Nothing is what it seems in an old English manor. When a new governess arrives, the children entrusted to her care seem to receive visits from the ghosts. What horrors occurred here before her arrival? Are the children innocent? Can we really trust what we see?
Available from today Friday 27th August at 19.00 CET, 18.00 London and 13.00 NY.
Click on the link below and feel free to share your thoughts in Comments section
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74fr05_nCAw
I sang the role of Flora at Juilliard with Martin Isepp conducting. Andrew Porter said: “the role of Flora never quite got off the ground.”
Brava.
A brilliant composer, and there are stunning moments in his music, but had his melodic aesthetics not been perverted by the turn in his screw, Britten could’ve been a far greater composer.
Calling the Turn of the Screw a “ghost story” suggests that Britten and Piper figured out what Henry James was really getting at with his story. An entire cottage industry of literary critical analysis is not so sure about that.
To my mind neither the story nor the opera (nor the film versions for that matter) pay or paid enough attention to what struck me even as a youth as being one of the more sinister aspects of the tale – the restrictions placed on the Governess by the uncle.
Or — heh — was that really the uncle?
It is a pity that David Nelson never saw the Anthony Besch production, brilliantly if simply designed by John Stoddart, for Scottish Opera around 50 years ago. The restrictions were very clearly laid out, as indeed they should be, and contributed to the Governess’ state of mind.
The production was one of the great interpretations of a superb work. It toured extensively in the UK and around parts of Europe. Designed with smaller theatres in mind, I remember when it was performed in the Frankfurt Opera some years later in its enormous barn of a stage. The Chief Stage Technician told the Company Manager something to the effect, “We normally use more than ten times the stage area for our productions but rarely can we create the effect that you have created with this production.” It was a worthy plaudit.