Goodness me – what was that all about – ghosts, shadows, madness, sopranos galore, puppets, weird break dancing & discordant music! Thankfully there was the obligatory dead person on the stage at the end or else I’d have never guessed it was an opera!
I went to my first opera, Carmen, sung in English, when I was 16 and we had the best seats in the house at the Liverpool Empire. It wasn’t quite the scene from Pretty Woman as I was certainly not wearing a red ball gown like Julia Roberts and my dad’s Fiesta was not as glamorous as Richard Gere’s private jet, but I very much had the same reaction meaning I was moved and hooked all at the same time.
Since then, I have been to many operas at several different theatres so I was particularly looking forward to Benjamin Britten’s “Turn of the Screw” at The Lowry, especially as it was sung in English, thinking this would be a good introduction to opera for many people.
Well, that’s the theory, but this opera was actually quite difficult to watch, follow and hear so not one for first timers.
The story opens with a musical theatre-type tenor, Prologue, telling us the tale of a young lady he used to know who was a Governess in charge of two small children. Their Guardian, who was also their Uncle, had given her three rules: to never write to him about the children; never enquire about the family history; and never leave the children.
Act one sees the Governess (Sarah Tynan) – and we never do find out her name – arriving at Bly House to meet the children, Flora (Jennifer Clark) and Miles (Tim Gasiorek), and the housekeeper, Mrs Grose (Heather Shipp) for the first time. We discover shortly afterwards that Miles has been expelled from school with no explanation and the Governess finds this rather difficult to fathom as he appears to be such a sweet boy.
The ghost of Peter Quint (Nicholas Watts), a former manservant and possible paedophile, begins to appear as does the ghost of his ex-lover, Miss Jessel (Eleanor Dennis), who was potentially also inappropriately close to the children. I didn’t really get this from the opera but there was certainly an undercurrent of sexualised behaviour, mainly from the two children, that was all rather disturbing.
Then the real strangeness begins with eerie melodies, puppets, a rocking horse, shadows, out of sync dancing like birds and the two ghosts trying to take over the children’s bodies. Fortunately, the ghosts were thwarted by the Governess and Mrs Grose.
Moving into Act two, as if things weren’t strange enough, things take a turn for the even more bizarre. Breaking one of the golden rules, the Governess decides she needs to write a letter to the Uncle but the ghost of Peter Quint persuades Miles to steal it so the letter is never sent. This only comes out when Mrs Grose is taking Flora away to save her from Miss Jessel’s evil ghost and when confronted, Miles eventually admits that it was Peter Quint who made him do it. Miles promptly dies as the ghost disappears and the Governess is left distraught.
Although the stage was dark and a little dreary, there was some ingenious use of lighting and the orchestra were excellent.
As a ghost story, I was expecting to be scared but I wasn’t. As an opera sung in English, I was expecting to find it easy to follow but, it wasn’t. It really would have helped if there had been the usual titles we have at The Lowry as the multi soprano voices turned into a cacophony on many occasions. Although Tim Gasiorek really did have a very sweet and beautiful voice, he could hardly be heard so perhaps a microphone would have helped.
I really wanted to give this a great review as I usually love Opera North productions but, unfortunately, it’s only a 2 out of 5 for me.
