Turning the Screw
22 June
Every so often I have an experience which reminds me why I go to operas.
This one began unpromisingly. I rang the theatre in Llandudno to book my ticket and was not given an easy time of it. The box office person really didn't want to give me too much time telling me how to get to the theatre, where to park, what the auditorium was like in terms of booking my seat. I could easily have allowed myself to be put off.
Then the performance started at 7:15. This meant driving out of Liverpool in the rush hour, through the Birkenhead Tunnel, over to Queensferry and then along the coast road. It's a drive and I thought that I should be hard pressed to make it there in reasonable time.
But I needn't have worried. I guess my view of the distances was coloured by childhood holidays. It seemed to take forever to drive along the North Wales coast. And there was the whole business of leaving the country to go to a foreign land - underlined by the roadside signs just past Shotton and Hawarden given in two different languages welcoming you to Wales.
And there was the fact that the four lane highway is only a recent development. It's an amazingly clear road. From office to theatre through the centre of Liverpool at rush hour took less than 90 minutes. I had time to eat some sustaining sandwiches on the promenade in front of the theatre.
The work itself, when the house lights went down, was Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw. The last time that I saw this opera I didn't really say much about it because the performance was on the same day as my sister's wedding. So, maybe now is the time to say a few words.
The Turn of the Screw was the first opera I ever saw. It was on Monday 2 April 1973 and I was working for Merseyside Arts Association in between school and university. I was approaching my 19th birthday. The opera had been first performed at La Fenice in Venice in 1954, the year of my birth. The production, on tour at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre, was given by Scottish Opera. The line up was as follows.
|
The only reason I know all this is because I am now staying in the house of a compulsive opera queen who has back copies of Opera magazine going back to the 1960s. So, I researched it all. And, in retrospect, it's fascinating because Milla Andrew and Nan Christie both went on to have substantial careers.
I've said it before in other circumstances but it's worth repeating here. I think that, if I had gone to see any other opera that evening, my future devotion to opera would have been far less easily assured. My background was in theatre. At 19, I had only recently come to classical music. I think that, if I sat through something about dead kings and queens, I would not have been as drawn.
But here was a ghost story. Clearly told. In English. Sung over a chamber orchestra so that the words were clearly audible. Given in a production that was a model of restraint and clarity. I sat entranced throughout. Electricity coursing up and down my spine at appropriate moments. By the end of the evening I was hooked.
In the subsequent 27 years, I've attended hundreds of performances. I've seen 8 performances of this particular opera in five different productions. Each time the house lights go down, I'm hoping to re-create that first exciting experience.
On 22 June 2000, in the North Wales Theatre, Llandudno, for me, lightning struck again. Let's say from the start that it was a team effort, so here's the new line up.
|
Musically, it was stunning. Amazing sounds from the dozen or so players. Carlo Rizzi went for the dissonances and kept the musical screw turning throughout. All of the singing performances were magnificent. I really like the refulgence of Geraldine McGreevey's voice. Linked with Paul Nilon's Quint there was a real vocal eroticism to their intertwining melismas making the ghosts all the more appealingly dreadful. Mary Lloyd-Davies's Mrs Grose was subtly ambiguous. Like the children, it was impossible to tell what she or they knew and how much any of them were prepared to reveal. Young Oliver Carden gave a terrifyingly assured performance as Miles. All of which provided Janice Watson with the perfect backdrop to give us the tormented soul of the governess.
By the end, as the final sounds of the percussion died away and the lights dimmed once more and the curtain fell and the performance ended, there was silence. And then, the applause began to kick in. Slowly, sporadically and building, sustained through several curtain calls.
It was 90 miles to drive back. I don't remember much of it. It was 50 miles
before I could even think of putting the car radio on as I was so caught up
in the sound world of the opera. I would never of thought to travel such a
distance in the South East but the relative lack of press up here means that
such travel is a distinct possibility. It took me about 90 minutes for the
journey. I've known it take that long on the Tube from central London to
Walthamstow. 