Stephen King considers Henry James’s 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw a great supernatural work of horror. And he should know. But Benjamin Britten’s 1954 version is arguably even better, especially in a production as note-perfect as Pacific Opera Victoria’s. Like the original tale, there is no blood, no gore. No heart-racing screams in the night. Instead, there is the same slow accumulation of dread, but now relentlessly ratcheted up by an extraordinary score.
The opera opens with a Prologue where a man holds pages that reveal the kernel of the story: a naïve young woman has been hired by the “gallant and handsome” guardian of two young orphans to be their governess at an English country-house named Bly. The catch is that he is far too busy to be bothered by anything to do with his wards. She must be responsible for everything and never write to him.
All goes well at first. The Governess takes immediately to the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, and finds the children, Miles and Flora, charming. Soon, though, she receives a letter saying that Miles has been dismissed from his school for “an injury to his friends.” She decides it’s a wicked lie: “The child is an angel!” Her peace, alas, does not last. She twice sees a man – “tall, clean-shaven, yes, even handsome. But a horror!” – that Mrs. Grose recognizes as Peter Quint, the master’s valet, now dead, who “made free” with Miles and the previous governess, the lovely Miss Jessel, also now dead. From here, the opera begins to hurtle toward its inevitable conclusion: the death of a child.
POV’s engrossing, all-Canadian production, directed by Michael Shamata, with sets and costumes by Shawn Kirwin and lighting by Leigh Ann Vardy, is stark yet rich in detail. Shamata keeps Peter Quint’s movements slow and deliberate – a bit like a snake, he slowly circles the Governess with head and neck curved down. Kirwin’s set could serve just as well for a drawing-room comedy or a grand opera; with Vardy’s shadowy, menacing lighting, however, it’s viscerally chilling, with walls and windows eerily floating, solid yet unrooted.
But even without such a strong physical production, the opera would have been a musical triumph.
The singing was superb from beginning to end. As Peter Quint, tenor Isaiah Bell was both vocally assured and physically persuasive as a corrupt “horror” of a man. Having him also sing the Prologue (not always the case) made the audience sit up from the first note – his voice is sweet and flexible yet bold and full too – while also adding another layer of uncertainty (wait, that guy was a ghost?) to a story already rife with it.
Photo Credit: David Cooper Photography
Former governess Miss Jessel (Jonelle Sills) faces off against her replacement (Kirsten MacKinnon) in The Turn of the Screw
Myfanwy Piper’s taut, evocative libretto layers ambiguity like icing on a cake. Was Miles sexually abused? Our minds jump to that conclusion, but it’s actually not clear. What does the ghost of Peter Quint want from Miles now? His soul? Maybe. Was Flora abused too? Again not clear, but the ghost of Miss Jessel now yearns for her to join her in woe. Even the Governess becomes suspect: does she want to save them or possess them herself? (“You shall be mine,” she sings.)
As the Governess, soprano Kirsten MacKinnon was a wonder. She possesses a stunning, expressive voice over which she exerts exact control: every note, from high to low, pure and burnished but also infused with meaning and feeling. Her grief at Miles’ death in the final moments of the opera is unforgettable. As an actor-singer, there are no opera halls that are beyond her reach.
Even the great MacKinnon, however, could not overshadow mezzo Catherine Daniel as Mrs. Grose and soprano Jonelle Sills as Miss Jessel. Daniel’s warm, round sound fit her kind but hapless character perfectly. She felt like an old-hand on the opera stage, instead of the emerging star she actually is. Sills’s Miss Jessel was clearly a damaged soul, and her duet with Bell in particular, built around the W.B. Yeats’s line “the ceremony of innocence is drowned,” was gorgeous.
The children did not disappoint either. Soprano Mars Young as Miles and treble Jake Apricity Hetherington as Flora were alternately charming and unsettling in their seemingly innocent games. Young’s “Malo, malo” (a word that means both apple tree and evil in Latin) both touched and chilled.
Not to be outdone, the tight, committed 13-member chamber orchestra in the pit, ably led by POV’s principal conductor Giuseppe Pietraroia, played Britten’s 12-note theme and variations with clarity and style. While all the musicians had their moments to shine, of particular note were Jona Koh’s masterful drums and chimes, David Boutin-Bourque’s seductive clarinet and Arin Sarkissian’s expressive, buoyant flute.
Britten’s The Turn of the Screw is challenging in its content, even more perhaps in our time than in his own or Henry James’s, but it is also a musical and psychological tour de force. POV honoured it well.
Photo Credit: David Cooper Photography
At Pacific Opera Victoria, the Governess and Peter Quint fight for Miles (left to right: Kirsten MacKinnon, Mars Young, Isaiah Bell)
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