Dur­ing the inter­val of last night’s per­form­ance of Ben­jamin Brit­ten’s The Turn of the Screw, I popped out­side for a bit of cold air and second-hand smoke.  As I stood read­ing the play­bills, a group of four people bustled out, one of whom was loudly and petu­lantly pro­claim­ing “But I want PUCCINI!!!”  They did not return to the theatre for the second half, and I was­n’t sur­prised.  Brit­ten seems as far from Puccini as you can get.

Full dis­clos­ure – I love Puccini.  I love Verdi and Rossini and Delibes and Biz­et and Moz­art.  I love the kind of opera that non-opera fans recog­nise from movies like Pretty Woman and Moon­struck.  (I’m Nich­olas Cage, obvi­ously.)  I love soar­ing arias and bos­omy heroines and swell­ing chor­uses and rich cos­tume and just lush extra­vag­ant music, with beau­ti­ful voices weav­ing in beau­ti­ful HARMONIC coun­ter­point.  I also loved last night’s pro­duc­tion, whole­heartedly.

The Turn of the Screw is stripped back, with only six sing­ers and a cham­ber orches­tra.  The set is mono­chro­mat­ic and mal­le­able, with drop­sheets obscur­ing and then reveal­ing new parts of the set.  Fram­ing it are a series of Expres­sion­ist trapezoids.  These form a cor­ridor, but that cor­ridor could be one of many in a grand but mostly empty house, or a path­way between this life and the next, depend­ing on the moment.  It all cre­ates an effect both dream­like and harsh, per­fectly suited to the music and themes.  A clev­er and cre­at­ive light­ing design plays off it all, and turns a cur­tain into a win­dow through which a Gov­erness begins to see omin­ous fig­ures influ­en­cing the chil­dren she is employed to pro­tect.

Music­ally, Brit­ten cre­ates a deeply unset­tling envir­on­ment with dis­son­ant music and vocal lines, describ­ing the emo­tion­al atmo­sphere rather than any­thing as pro­sa­ic as dia­logue or story.  A twelve-tone theme runs through­out, bind­ing it all togeth­er – I did­n’t real­ise it was there until later, when it was quietly whis­per­ing in my head.  The orches­tra, tucked away at the side of the stage and sens­it­ively dir­ec­ted by Holly Math­ieson, at times seems to be far  more than just 13 play­ers, and then drops away to just a harp, or a piano, a sug­ges­tion of accom­pani­ment.

Anna Leese’s voice is mag­ni­fi­cent, and her deliv­ery power­fully mov­ing, as her Gov­erness moves from nervous­ness about a new pos­i­tion, to devel­op­ing devo­tion to her charges, and then the real­isa­tion that some­thing ter­rible has happened in the house and dark forces con­tin­ue to hold sway.  She believ­ably nav­ig­ates an emo­tion­al jour­ney that could seem illo­gic­al, and in the last moments, her hor­ror and grief was heart-break­ing.

Jared Holt and Madeleine Pier­ard are bril­liantly cast, both with the kind of rich and throb­bing voices per­fect for the spectres they play and strong phys­ic­al­ity.  But the chil­dren…

Alexa Har­wood and Alex­an­dros Swal­low are simply extraordin­ary.  I genu­inely can­not com­pre­hend how per­formers of their age could play such mor­ally com­plex parts that authen­tic­ally, and their voices are truly excel­lent.  Add the chal­lenge of singing parts often in dis­chord with the accom­pa­ny­ing music and oth­er sing­ers…  Just mind-bog­gling.

I’ve tried my best to avoid spoil­ers, because I truly think any­one who CAN get to the second and last per­form­ance (Sat­urday 5th, at the Opera House) of this lim­ited sea­son, SHOULD.  Brit­ten can be ali­en­at­ing, if you prefer a sweeter, more romantic style of opera, and the story is dis­tress­ing, with its themes of cor­rup­tion of inno­cence and help­less­ness.  But if you allow your­self to be taken on that jour­ney, you will invest in it, you will feel things, and that’s what good opera should do.