ENO. The Turn of the Screw

  

The Turn of the Screw is Benjamin Britten’s operatic interpretation of a Henry James popular ghost story about a governess to two children. The setting is a bleak country house in the 1920’s surrounded by beautiful grounds but which harbours a dark secret.  The governess sees the ghosts of the valet, Peter Quint, and the previous governess, Miss Jessel, who have both died recently. 

The New governess (at a desk) Ailish Tynan sees the ghosts of the valet, Peter Quint and the previous governess, Miss Jessel (in chairs opposite) with children.

 She vows to protect the children from their influence, especially the boy Miles. The final unspoken implication is of some past horror perpetrated against the boy. Or maybe the governess sees all these as imagined events through the fog of dementia; it is never answered.   

The whole set serves both as the institution many years later, where the governess is cared for and the house from the 1920’s.  In flashback we see the story unfold in the first of eight acts which, like chapters of a book, tell the gothic story. 

                                            The appearances of the ghost of Peter Quint  

The set is illuminated by a projection of the surrounding woods, shown in black and white, onto the greyness of the building further emphasizing the bleakness and sense of foreboding.  In later acts the inside of the house showing a desolate, cold interior. 

The score is played with chilling effect; the screw is turned gradually increasing the feeling of danger. In each act the music is restrained, the notes hard to create an atmosphere of hidden evil.  

Ailish Tynan, as the governess, sings with crystal clarity, portraying her emotions from her love for the children and then the fear and uncertainty for their safety. She has one friend in the housekeeper Mrs. Grose, sung by Gweneth Ann Rand, who relates the story of the valet and past governess. The appearances of the ghost of Peter Quint, sung with menace by Robert Murray, enticing Miles to steal and lie to the governess. He is shown as manipulative to the ex-governess Miss Jessel trying to press his unwanted desires on her at the opening of Act II. Then both mysteriously leave and consequently pass away.

At the centre of the story is the children Miles, sung both by Nicolai Flutter and Jerry Louth, and Flora, sung by Holly Hylton and Victoria Nekhaenko. Their high plaintive voices especially when singing the nursery rhymes show their innocence in the face of the evil around them.

All performers sing wonderfully, expressing the sense of the invasive and now all-pervading peril. In the final scene Quint is finally banished by Miles who dies from the effort in the arms of the governess.

A conclusion to a spooky story which raises some unspoken questions still relevant in today’s society.               

 

Mike Aburrow

Ludmila Yablokova

Photo press-office of ENO