1 – 23 December

Directed by Isabelle Kettle, this production of The Turn Of The Screw is riveting from start to finish. Based on a novella by Henry James, Benjamin Britten’s chamber opera is a profoundly ambiguous, darkly nuanced work, replete with unanswered questions. It tells the story of a nervous, well-intentioned governess who takes up an appointment at the home of two precocious orphaned children, Miles and Flora. They initially appear delightful, though Miles has been expelled from school for some unspecified misbehaviour. Things take an apparently supernatural turn, for the children seem to have some kind of mysterious relationship with the ghosts of a previous governess, Miss Jessel, and a valet, Peter Quint. Anxious to protect the children, the Governess is drawn inexorably into increasingly disturbing circumstances. At one point, Myfanwy Piper’s libretto takes a line from W B Yeat’s The Second Coming: ‘The ceremony of innocence is drowned.’ But whose innocence is in peril here, that of the children or that of the governess?

The night I attended Sarah Gifford’s purity of tone beautifully conveyed the young Governess’s eagerness to do well in her challenging new job, and her growing affection for the children was touchingly depicted. Later, her fear and desperation when faced with bewildering events was very moving. As the Housekeeper Mrs Grose, Emma Bell portrayed a woman capable of warm affection for both the children and the new Governess, but one who thought it best not to reveal too much of the past. At times Bell’s voice was perhaps too big for this relatively small space, but her characterisation of the kindly Housekeeper was very well defined. Xavier Hetherington endowed Peter Quint with a chillingly controlled, remorseless malevolence. We were left to guess at his motivation, which added to his power to disturb. Elin Pritchard vividly portrayed Miss Jessel as a sad creature bemoaning her fate and seeking some kind of revenge. Whether or not these phantoms are real, or a figment of the Governess’s mind remains unresolved.

Youngsters Maia Greaves and Oliver Michael brought an impressive depth and conviction to their rôles as spirited Flora and enigmatic Miles. These children frequently appeared to be in their own dreamlike world, one where it was they who were in control of events. A striking feature of this production was the way they interacted with the three onstage musicians, especially when Miles shows off his skills at the piano. Cheekily playful one moment, but strangely knowing and remote the next, these are children whose innocence becomes increasingly doubtful.

Flora is seen to be capable of endearing sweetness and ferocious hatred in equal measure, and Miles’s trance-like, insistent singing of his haunting song ‘Malo’ was a wonderfully eerie moment that encapsulated his unnerving personality. In a production that is by no means short of other strengths, Maia and Oliver came very close to stealing the show.

Charlotte Henry’s set design makes atmospheric use of candlelight, and a semi-transparent screen at the back of the stage works well to separate the real world from that of the ghosts (even if during entrances and exits it is a little too reminiscent of a shower curtain). The two pianists and flautist, all clad in black, are integrated seamlessly into the action. In the most spectral moments, one pianist plays a celesta, creating a sound that is at once sweet and unsettling. Britten’s music can unsettle in other ways, particularly when it shifts in and out of conventional tonality. Especially effective are those sequences when the children sing nursery rhymes, their simplicity contrasting vividly with the rest of the score.

Exploring ideas of freedom and discipline, of corruption and innocence and, perhaps, of reality and delusion, The Turn Of The Screw demands much of its performers if those themes are to be conveyed with clarity. In this production, where the very high quality of the singing is matched by that of the acting, those demands are met in full.

★★★★☆  Mike Whitton, 7 December 2023

Photo credit:  Ellie Kurttz