OperaGlass Works Review: The Turn of the Screw – a filmic masterpiece

Forget over lockdown heroics, this production of The Turn of the Screw is the finest treatment of Benjamin Britten’s last ever chamber opera I have ever seen. Why is The Turn of the Screw difficult? Because it is a psychological ghost story with a seemingly clear conclusion. But, look closer, it’s not so obvious. All the characters carry some baggage of internal conflicts and it isn’t easy to convey these subtly, yet this production oozes with the necessary ambiguity. 

Inevitably, producers are usually tempted to silo the battle between the good and evil that drives the libretto. The last production I saw at the Juilliard Center in New York fell into that trap. Quint, the deceased manservant and corrupter of an innocent child – bad. Governess, a beacon of prim moral rectitude from a respectable home – good. However, in this OperaGlass Works production, conclusions are not so easily reached. The audience is left dazed, horror-struck and forced to think long after the curtain has fallen.

There are no winners in this opera, no clear line between the goodies and the baddies. What’s that at the back of my mind? Nag, nag, nag. That applies in spades to the often wrongly stereotyped governess, who we learn here early on may be delusional. Is the corruption of Quint and Miss Jessel merely a figment of her imagination? Do the ghosts exist at all?

That OperaGlass – in only their second production – has managed to deliver this masterpiece, set in Wilton’s old music hall in London, in compelling filmic style and with no audience, is a triumph in Covid times. 

The company’s first successful offering was Britten’s The Rake’s Progress, also at Wilton’s. The poster strapline was “exquisite opera in intimate spaces”. The Turn of the Screw was six weeks into rehearsal when lockdown struck. Selina Cadell and Liza Thompson, sparky founders of OperaGlass Works, could easily have abandoned the project. No shame in that. I think they have yet to stumble across a dictionary that features the word “defeat”. No audience? What the hell? Let’s make a film instead.

But not any old film. A hybrid art form has emerged and assisting them in direction was Dominic Best. The trio brings a wealth of producing talent to the party. Buckle down, raise another £180,000 to complete the project, and for £360,000, a timeless artwork is born. Set that in the context of the $35m it cost to create the set alone for the Met’s last Ring Cycle, and it is clear exquisite opera need not cost the earth. 

The trio honours the spirit of conventional theatre production but there is no attempt to hide the camera. The proximity this enables in every scene is used to great effect when singers squarely face the lens. The audience follows the action down cobwebbed passages. How can I ever be content to sit in row Z again? I have been spoilt. 

The feeling of engagement and intimacy is riveting. Every nook and cranny of the old, distressed music hall is explored – dingy corridors, dressing rooms, dust-caked windows. The auditorium is filled with thickets of tall reeds, within which much of the action takes place. Abandoned music seats and stands are poignant reminders of a distanced orchestra.

Yet, technology does not intrude. There is the occasional “honesty” overhead shot of a singer performing straight to the camera. But the temptation to “go techno” with camera dollies cluttering the action, an irritating feature of many “aren’t we clever” lockdown offerings, is resisted. The result is a degree of engagement that arguably goes beyond even live theatre. From the get-go, the audience is immersed in the action. The drama dial is turned to max. The claim to have created a new art form is vindicated.

Written in 1954, The Turn of the Screw is the last of Britten’s chamber operas. The plot is based on the gothic horror novella by Henry James. A sheltered young governess is sent to care for two children in a country house called Bly. The children’s guardian and owner of the house is a mysterious figure who never appears. The first discombobulation of the audience is that governess is not permitted to communicate with her employer – he’s perma-busy – yet there is a hint that she has fallen in love with him, sight unseen.

Her new post seems perfect. The children, Miles and Flora, are angelic. The estate is beautiful. But young – butter wouldn’t melt on his sharply-coiffed parting – Miles, has been expelled from school for some unspecified, diabolical behaviour. A seed of potential corruption has been sown in Elysium. There is an unexplained attachment to Quint, the former manservant, now dead. Sadly, contemporary audiences will have no difficulty reading between the Savile lines.

The governess becomes disturbed as apparitions of a man and woman begin to appear around the house and the grounds. The housekeeper tells her they are the ghosts of Quint and Miss Jessel, the previous governess. The housekeeper, Mrs Grose, begins to fear it is Miss Jessel’s successor who is delusional.

Both children appear drawn to the ghosts. As the governess feels an increasing sense of evil surrounding the house, Quint and Jessel appear more often and ever closer to the children, intending to possess them, as the governess tries desperately to protect her young charges. 

The governess eventually decides to break her pledge of silence and write to her employer, warning him of the danger to the children’s moral wellbeing. Miles then steals the letter.

Mrs Grose decides to take Flora away from Bly, finally convinced that the governess is right. She has heard terrible things from Flora in her sleep. When the governess and Miles are left alone, she tries to get him to confide in her, but Quint’s voice can be heard warning against her. Miles admits that he took the letter to see what she said about them, and Quint warns him not to betray their secrets.

The governess tries to get Miles to break the spell by naming Quint, but the effort is too much, and he dies as he does so, leaving her to mourn: “What have we done between us?”

Rhian Lois, a Welsh soprano, sings the role of the governess. She debuted at the Royal Opera House in 2015 as Papagena in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and first appeared as the governess in an ENO production of The Turn of the Screw in the 2017/18 season. Singing directly into a camera lens must be daunting – every flickering emotion in plain sight. Ms Lois was mesmerising, she has a captivating voice.

Her mobile facial expressions soon make it clear the governess is never certain whether self-delusion is in play. Her final Pyrrhic victory over Quint, only to have Miles die in her arms, is genuinely shocking. 

Leo Jamison as Miles and Alys Meremid Roberts as Flora both bring an immediate sense of menace to their superficial, engaging charm. Even innocently sung nursery rhymes carry a mocking snarl just below the surface. Their singing and acting ability are both outstanding. Miles’ varied intonation of the trancelike Latin pneumonic,”Malo”, in the aria in which it is insistently repeated is a tour de force.

Robert Murray – Quint and the Prologue – portrays the evil ghost as a plausible character, deepening the paradoxes upon which the opera is based. Is the governess imagining an evil never proven? Are we in the now familiar territory of unfounded allegations by false accusers – or pure evil? Mr Murray never lets the plausible guise of Quint slip and keeps the audience guessing, even beyond the end.

Francesca Chiejina, soprano, a recent graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House (ROH), is Miss Jessel, the previous governess. She, too, never quite lets the mask of innocence slip completely. She makes it almost impossible to believe she could be guilty of evil. The Governess’ perception must be a self-induced error.

Gweneth Ann Rand, soprano, is the housekeeper. Her judgement always oscillates – between the governess being delusional and the ghostly figures being a reality – to the children at least, if not to her —no need to wonder why she succeeds in being convincing. Troubled psycho characters are her meat and drink. With parts in Richard Strauss’ Elektra, Tarik O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness and Philip Venables’ Psychosis on her CV, the equivocal housekeeper role comes naturally.

The screenplay is deft, mobile, but never frenetic. Wilton’s shabby dereliction imbues a fitting sense of decay. I can’t recall ever seeing an opera in which the auditorium wangled its own starring role. 

The alehouse-turned-music hall has been at 1 Graces Alley, Shadwell since 1743. It was the favoured pub/theatre resort of east enders in its heyday and is now a centre for the arts. It benefits from having never been properly restored and proudly bears the scars of previous neglectful owners and strange uses – sometimes church. It exudes character, a point not lost on Ms Cadell and Thompson. 

I was so captivated by OperaGlass’ achievement I brazenly set up a Zoom call with Liza Thompson. Selina Cadell was moving house and had no internet. The good news is they are even now mulling over the “what’s next?” question. 

I think the filmic format has been such a success OperaGlass will travel that road again – in an intimate space. At first sight, it might make sense to use the medium’s flexibility to favour original settings – “Hamlet on the battlements of Elsinore,” in Liza’s words. But she feels that would be to ignore the fact that operas are written to be performed in theatres. 

From a standing start to a production of sufficient quality to gain access to BBC schedules is remarkable. OperaGlass Works seems well set to succeed in bringing its operas to the broader audience that eludes so many other production houses. Brava!

The opera is currently available on BBC iPlayer or Marquee Television here.