The Turn of the Screw at Nationaltheater Mannheim

A disturbing story about the struggle of the supposedly good against the apparently evil, about the loss of innocence and deadly obsession: a young governess arrives in an isolated English country house to look after the two orphans, Flora and Miles. She has to promise the guardian of the children never to disturb him with problems. Soon she notices, however, that the children are haunted by the ghosts of their previous educators, Miss Jessel and Peter Quint, who both died under mysterious circumstances. With the help of housekeeper Mrs. Grose, the governess tries to remove the children from the influence of the dead and encounters things that can hardly be imagined

Benjamin Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw, based on the novel of the same name by Henry James and premièred in 1954 in Venice, is a ghost story and psychodrama in one. It remains open to the end what is a real threat and what is a hallucination of the educator. With just a chamber ensemble, Britten achieves an immense intensity of expression and a differentiated musical characterisation. The music of the children, based on English nursery rhymes, contrasts with the enticing coloratura that are associated with the ghosts. In sixteen instrumental parts referred to as variations, Britten uses the basic 12-tone theme of the opera and brings it to a head in a final crunch. This concentration lends the work an atmosphere of intense claustrophobia and gives it a fascinating dramatic force.