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.
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.
Cast and Creative Team for The Turn of the Screw at Nationaltheater Mannheim
Conductor Joseph Trafton
Directed by Frank Hilbrich
Stage design Volker Thiele
Dramaturgy Dorothea Krimm
Costume design Gabriele Rupprecht
Cast:
Der Prolog
Uwe Eikötter
Die Gouvernante
Antje Bitterlich / Astrid Kessler / Eunju Kwon
Miles
N N
Flora
N N
Mrs. Grose, die Haushälterin
Marie-Belle Sandis / N N
Quint, früherer Diener
Uwe Eikötter / N N
Miss Jessel, frühere Gouvernante
Iris Kupke / Cornelia Ptassek
Directed by Frank Hilbrich
Stage design Volker Thiele
Dramaturgy Dorothea Krimm
Costume design Gabriele Rupprecht
Cast:
Der Prolog
Uwe Eikötter
Die Gouvernante
Antje Bitterlich / Astrid Kessler / Eunju Kwon
Miles
N N
Flora
N N
Mrs. Grose, die Haushälterin
Marie-Belle Sandis / N N
Quint, früherer Diener
Uwe Eikötter / N N
Miss Jessel, frühere Gouvernante
Iris Kupke / Cornelia Ptassek
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