Tag Archives: The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw, English National Opera, Oct 2024

This new production is by someone who has previously made her name as a stage designer, and I found the designs too clever by half. The key to this opera is ambiguity, but this was absent. The mystery of the story however was heard in the excellent performance of Britten’s music and the carefully crafted …

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Turn of the Screw, Garsington Opera, July 2019

A hauntingly memorable interpretation of Britten’s masterpiece based on the Henry James story, with Sophie Bevan expressing the naïve yet fevered emotions of the Governess. Wonderful singing from all the cast, including Ed Lyon as Quint — see my review in The Article.

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Turn of the Screw, Opera Holland Park, OHP, July 2014

All performances start at 8 o’clock, and for good reason. The month is July and Act II emerges as the outside light gradually dims. In early Act I with daylight outside, Miles goes to a large blackboard on one side of the stage and draws the outline of what looks like a door. In the darker …

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The Turn of the Screw, Glyndebourne, August 2011

The clarity of this production, and this performance, was exceptional. From the first words of the Prologue to the last words of the drama when the Governess asks the limp body of Miles, “What have we done between us?”, the whole story was laid bare. The scene with the governess travelling by train to the big …

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Ghosts in the Mind

This is written in connection with two ghost stories I have seen on stage recently: The Turn of the Screw and The Woman in Black. In his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes argues that three thousand years ago human beings had bicameral minds, meaning that one half of the …

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