English Composer, Benjamin Britten composed The Turn Of The Screw in 1954. The plot – taken from a horror novella of the same name, written by Henry James in 1898, is rather intriguing in its own right, but under scrutiny, it does not take long to realise that this opera has many layers.
With a cast of six members and a fairly peculiar orchestra – traditional strings and woodwind are paired up with a piano, celeste, harp, alto flute and bass clarinet – this opera is like few others. The programme tells us an outline of the plot with sparing detail – we know what it is about but as time goes on, revelations begin to tell us the real truth and even then – do we really know what has happened?
A governess (Sarah Tynan) is employed to go to Bly House to look after two orphaned children. Her only instructions, the first turn of the screw, are that her employer, their uncle, should never be contacted in any circumstance. She arrives and meets the children – Miles (Tim Gasiorek) and Flora (Jennifer Clark) and Mrs. Grose the housekeeper (Heather Shipp). All is merry and fine until a letter arrives saying that the boy has been expelled from school, a second turn of the screw, due to “an injury to his friends”. The governess decides to trust her instinct and does not consider Miles to be a bad child. Things begin to take a change when the governess sees a man on the tower. She worries – is it a mad man? Some curious stranger? How did he get in? Shortly after, he appears again – this time looking in through the window before disappearing. Mrs. Grose asks the governess to tell her what he looked like – close-curling red hair, long pale face, small eyes – and we are told that it is Peter Quint, the master’s valet. The only problem is that Quint died slipping on an icy road and struck his head. By now, the crisis is in full swing – the governess decided resolutely to protect the children. Will she be able to carry out what she thinks is her destiny?
An imaginative set design meant that there were no major scene changes which would have provided a few challenges for other production companies, but not for Opera North. The set borrowed from some clichés of horror in a tasteful way – a four-poster bed, large church like windows, a rocking horse that rocked on its own, a floor that was uneven and angular, rising in to the distance to an odd and untrustworthy horizon. All these created an instant unsettling image but also were more than imagery – they were all used and central to various scenes. Other clever art forms – puppetry, shadow dancing, were used to great effect. Opera North has an immense level of detail and an opera such as The Turn Of The Screw is perfected in its creative hands. There is a scene towards the end of the first act where the two central children run off to a lake – there is a sense of danger here. The lake is first presented through a marionette show which sees the fourposter bed converted into a puppet box with the backdrop of a moonlit lake. This is a very clever device – initially I thought that it was a neat way of avoiding portraying a lake on stage but then I forgot this was Opera North – the top half of the back set to the stage floated away in to space revealing a huge lake shore and lake with bright shining moon. The children danced and skipped around this lake allowing us to see the governess and Mrs. Grose panic about the missing children in the bedroom. This use of set really enhanced this performance and was carefully considered for greatest effect.
Britten uses an array of dissonant and atonal techniques in this piece – each chapter is based on a twelve note motif, yet it is not completely dissonant. Today’s audience is more used to these sounds – now a staple in film music, and the dissonance was used very effectively to get across ideas of turmoil, anguish, fear and unrest. The singing style created an impersonal effect which I think added one of the layers of mystery about this piece – traditional opera, and indeed musical theatre will use the voice to make us warm to characters, to experience their emotions such as romance or threat – but here with Britten, there is an impartiality through vocal tone that, as time goes on, is chilling.
Each of the six performers sang expertly, making a difficult score sound easy. There was clarity and precision and excellent facial expression filled in the gaps which the vocal style tried to hide. In particular, eleven year old Tim Gasiorek as Miles, developed the character with a slowly increasing intensity that really was astounding. A simple smile at one point was spine-chilling.
The hidden layers of this opera are quite dark. The underlying story is about abuse – we are told that Mrs. Grose saw things she did not like - Peter Quint “was free with everyone – with little Master Miles.” The previous governess, Miss Jessel, was also taken advantage of by Quint. “He liked them pretty, I can tell you Miss, and he had his will, morning and night.”
This is the true horror of this story – a dark psychological struggle. Is Quint’s ghost real? Is it a manifestation of his control from beyond the grave or the legacy of his terror?
Opera North really explores these ideas with nuances and detail that makes this a truly shocking performance which brings the audience to consider the true horrors of the impact of abuse through the metaphor of a ghost story.
Reviewer - Aaron Loughrey
on - 11/3/20
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