CENTRAL CITY — When you hit the Central City Opera on a good night — when the weather is clear and warm, the audience engaged, the casino traffic manageable — nothing can match its charms. There is great opera across the U.S. during the summer, from New York to St. Louis to Santa Fe, but none of it is as intimate or inviting. The tiny, 134-year-old opera house, in the heart of Colorado rock country, can win you over no matter what’s onstage.
What’s onstage now can use the assist. Not so much in artistic terms, the production of Benjamin Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw” that opened Saturday is well-sung and the creepy edge of its ghost story plays especially well in the storied venue. But the setting should help lure audiences to a 20th century opera that’s low on easy-pleasy melodies and full of odd turns.
Central City’s take is particularly dark. That includes the stage, which is decorated with little more than one antique desk and is barely lit except for the singers themselves. The most notable set piece in director Alessandro Talevi’s version is nothingness, blackness, and it can be genuinely scary at times.
That’s how Britten, and librettist Myfanwy Piper intended things to play out when they created the work in 1954, well into the age of the kind of Hollywood horror movie this can resemble. Though “The Turn of the Screw” is smarter than most of the garbage in that genre, raising questions and leaving them mysteriously unanswered.
What we do know from the narrative, based on Henry James’ novella: A governess has come to an isolated estate in the mid-19th century English countryside to care for two strange children with few living relatives.
What we don’t know: Whether the ghosts she sees of the previous (and quite dead) nanny and a strange character named Peter Quint are actual or only in her head. Or why these ghouls are still after the children.
This is a story about some unmentioned form of child abuse, past or present, and its haunting qualities. What is real and abstract matters less than the urgency of the situation. These children are corrupted, damaged.
The young actors who sing the roles — in turns impressive for their ages — seemed to understand their own plight Saturday night. Alisa Jordheim, as adolescent Flora, and John Healy, as schoolboy Miles, alternated their characters between delightful cherub and demon child. They are possessed at times, but they are winning.
So is the cast as a whole. This is a tough opera to sing with a score that’s dissonant and largely disconnected except for a short theme that Britten repeats in some fashion before key plot points. With a distinct lack of ear-friendly tunes and, in this case, not much of a set, there is little to distract an audience from the largely recitative sounds a performer is called upon to make.
The singers used that to their advantage, taking turns exploiting those glaring (and unflattering) spotlights that fell on them. Sinéad Mulhern, as the governess, set the bar high and kept the audience pleasantly guessing about her wits. The connection between the singers and the chamber orchestra below them was clear and present. In this opera, the musicians have important interludes that propel the story along and conductor Steuart Bedford turned the small ensemble into a character itself.
Central City is taking a risk here. Even in the world of more recent operas, and in the world of Britten himself, “The Turn of the Screw” remains rare. But it’s a wise choice for this small operation; its place in the season reflects well on the venue, even if some audience members did flee at intermission.
Those who hung until the end got their rewards. The weather was just right, the traffic manageable. It was a good night.
Central City Opera’s “The Turn of the Screw” repeats at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday and July 25 and 29, and at 8 p.m. Aug. 4. Tickets are $30-$110.centralcityopera.org, or 303-292-6700.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/rayrinaldi
