Ghost story or Psycho-drama? The question is not easy to answer if one is to describe the chamber opera “the Turn of the Screw” composed in 1954 by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976). The title is too enigmatic to give a hint how to classify the mysterious element of the story. A governess is appointed to look after the children Miles and Flora at the English country house of Bly and to care for their upbringing. Her employer, guardian to the children, charges her never to consult him with problems concerning her task. In spite of doubts the governess accepts the appointment. She has the impression that her pupils are well brought up, perhaps too much so, and applies herself gladly to her mission. But then shadows appear in the form of the ghostly apparitions of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint. They were former employees and lovers, who came mysteriously to death. They seem even after death to have dominance over the children. When the governess decides to write to their guardian about this, young Miles throws away the letter. Events accelerate and the inevitable clarification has mortal consequences.

Britten’s operatic themes – whether inspired by George Crabbe, the English clergyman from the east coast (“Peter Grimes”) or by the American writers Herman Melville (“Billy Budd”) and Henry James (“The Turn of the Screw”) – always highlight innocence and guilt as central moral categories. “The ceremony of innocence is drowned”, the poet William Butler Yeats had once declared in reflection on the First World War. Benjamin Britten also cited this line when coming to terms with the still greater catastrophe of the Second World War. At the same time this opera deals also with pubertarian feelings of guilt, with the obsessions of adults and with the fantasy of an evil which can explode any element of reasonable thought and goodwill.

With “The Turn of the Screw” Deutsche Oper am Rhein offers further acquaintance with the English composer Benjamin Britten. And again it is director Immo Karaman who was fascinated by the mysterious element in Britten’s works and has attempted to lay them bare by means of suggestive images and depiction of situations. His staging is being shown in collaboration with the Leipzig opera, where the première in 2007 attracted much attention.

In cooperation with Oper Leipzig
 
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Benjamin Britten

THE TURN OF THE SCREW
Opera in two acts with a prologue
Libretto by Myfanwy Piper after Henry James



 
In English with German surtitles
 

Musikalische Leitung Wen-Pin Chien
Inszenierung Immo Karaman
Choreographie Fabian Posca
Bühne Kaspar Zwimpfer
Kostüme Marie-Luise Walek
Licht Michael Röger
Dramaturgie Sonja Westerbeck
 
The Prologue / Peter Quint Corby Welch
Darsteller Peter Quint Ulrich Kupas
The Governess Sylvia Hamvasi
Miles Kaisun Raj
Flora Yolanda Shamash
Mrs. Grose Marta Márquez
Quint Corby Welch
Miss Jessel Anke Krabbe
Erscheinung Miss Jessel Anna Roura-Maldonado
Orchester Düsseldorfer Symphoniker