Just as some operas are minefields for directors – Don Giovanni and Carmen are notorious – so others appear watertight, resistant to all approaches. It’s never because this latter category is easy. Far from it. Britten’s The Turn of the Screw creates challenges in casting, staging, interpretation: how do you deal with singing ghosts, not to mention singing children (keep reading), and a story barely told? Yet it manages to attract consistently strong productions. Last summer’s open-air version by ENO is still so vivid that another – by Louisa Muller, making her Garsington Opera debut – came round too soon in prospect. Proof that you never tire of excellence, this latest Turn of the Screw was brilliant and spine-tingling, as well as beautifully conceived and superbly performed.
Premiered at La Fenice, Venice in 1954, Britten’s chamber opera – based on Henry James’s novella, with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper – consists of a series of tiny scenes, which merge into one another but make unexplained leaps in chronology. One moment the naive young Governess arrives at a remote country house to look after two parentless children, Flora and Miles. The next she is uncontrollably haunted by a past, their past, which is never explained. All is tantalisingly ambiguous.
The strength of Muller’s production, true of any staging of this most chilling of works, is to retain the lightest steer on the action. Even the nature of the evil perpetrated by the dead valet Peter Quint (Ed Lyon), assumed to be sexual, is left open. The sympathetic housekeeper, Mrs Grose (Kathleen Wilkinson), may or may not think the Governess (Sophie Bevan) is out of her mind. The children, outstandingly played by Adrianna Forbes-Dorant and Leo Jemison, smile somewhat slyly but perhaps, after all, are innocent. Both have big parts to sing. Commiserations to treble Lucas Rebato, a memorable First Boy in Garsington’s Die Zauberflöte last year. Due to share the role of Miles, his voice broke just days before opening night. No doubt he’ll be back, lower down the vocal register.
Garsington’s glass-sided, pavilion-style theatre means the performance starts in broad daylight. It was less of a problem with this opera, despite its spooky nature, than with some. Much of the action takes place in daytime, in the school room, by the lake. Sunlight cannot diminish fear. Christopher Oram’s elegant designs, given shadow and flickering mystery as the evening draws in, thanks to Malcolm Rippeth’s ingenious lighting, double as interior and exterior. Tall windows and doors enable fearful sightings of the ghosts of Quint and the deceased governess, Miss Jessel (Katherine Broderick). A murky pool, ever present, adds to the mood of death and decay.
Britten scored this sensuous, musically glittering work for a compact ensemble of 13 players, many doubling on other instruments: clarinet on bass clarinet, flute on piccolo and alto flute, piano on celesta. Glockenspiel and tubular bells are among the 11 kinds of percussion required. Garsington Opera Orchestra, in their last season (following Garsington’s partnership, from 2020, with the Philharmonia and the English Concert), played with flair and expertise, and were perceptively conducted by Richard Farnes. The entire cast was expertly chosen. Broderick and Lyon shone, corporeally speaking, as the ghosts. Bevan’s Governess was generous, affecting, full of warmth but never overemotional, only hinting at neurosis: ideal. The Turn of Screw is disturbing, not always moving. This was both: one of Garsington’s best achievements yet, with an unexpected, watery end.
More Britten, more water, but this time global inundation in the form of Noye’s Fludde, premiered four years after The Turn of the Screw and as robust and earthy as its predecessor is tenuous. Written mainly for amateurs, especially children, it was given a rousing, colourful production by English National Opera in collaboration with Theatre Royal Stratford East, conducted by Martin Fitzpatrick, directed by Lyndsey Turner, with cheerful designs by Soutra Gilmour and some luxury choreography for Dove and Raven – touchingly danced – by Wayne McGregor.
A populous cast included 120 local schoolchildren, 90 young musicians and an adult community choir, with Marcus Farnsworth as the optimistic, obedient Noah and Louise Callinan as his grumpy wife. Animals came in two by two, jumping, giggling, heaving in pretend seasickness, squashed into a monochrome vessel which, as the rainbow appeared – heralded by gorgeous handbell chimes from high up on the stage – turned into Noah’s amazing technicolour dream ark, courtesy of hand-drawn video designs by Luke Halls. Everyone joined in singing Eternal Father, Strong to Save, and no one gave out any literature about climate change.
In a week heavy with fur and feathers, a quick word of high praise for the LSO Discovery children who participated – as woodland creatures – in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, thrillingly performed at the Barbican by the LSO and Simon Rattle and other rather good adults (Lucy Crowe and Gerald Finley for a start). And if we’re talking animal magic, Russian mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina, only 23, was a super-seductive Carmen at the Royal Opera House, taking over the role for two performances, including the Royal Opera’s BP Big Screen event on Tuesday. We were handed leaflets by Extinction Rebellion requesting the ROH change sponsor. Their protest was silent and respectful, and all the more effective for it.
Star ratings (out of five)
The Turn of the Screw ★★★★★
Noye’s Fludde ★★★★
The Turn of the Screw is in rep at Garsington Opera, Wormsley, Stokenchurch, until 19 July
Noye’s Fludde is at Theatre Royal Stratford East, London E15, until 13 July
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