✭✭✭✭✩

by Benjamin Britten, directed by Christopher Newton

Canadian Opera Company, du Maurier Theatre, Toronto

December 3-8, 2002

"A Haunting Production"

"The ceremony of innocence is drowned."  Myfanwy Piper added this line from W.B. Yeats's poem "The Second Coming", to her libretto for Benjamin Britten's opera "The Turn of the Screw" based on Henry James's supernatural novella of the same name.  In many ways it is a key to Britten's interpretation of the opera and to director Christopher Newton's highly detailed staging of it for the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio.  Audiences must have perceived that this was the perfect match of director and opera since the entire run sold out months before it opened.

Cameron Porteous' set consists entirely of an ornate, three-dimensional Victorian mansion with a tower representing the manor of Bly, about the size of a large, very expensive dollhouse.  To signal the various locations outside Bly, the house would glide and rotate across the bare du Maurier Theatre stage.  Windows for the appropriate indoor scenes would light up.  This self-animated house is an immensely clever way of evoking not merely the eeriness of the haunted house where the action take place but, as dollhouse, of the haunted childhood of the children Miles and Flora, somehow in the thrall of the ghosts of two servants, peter Quint and Mrs. Jessel.  Like the seemingly inhabited on-stage model of a house in Edward Albee's "Tiny Alice", the set also suggests that the actors/singers are merely puppets in the hands of a larger unknown force.

The furniture on stage, all black in its stark geometrical forms, contrasts with the neo-Gothic house and thus seems to set the actions apart from it and so generalize it.  Jane Johanson's austere choreography links the dance of miles and Flora to that of Quint and Jessel.  Newton's symbolic blocking shows significant actions echoing each other.  These together give the impression of a story being retold or a ceremony re-enacted about the death of innocence.  Indeed, as the "Malo" song suggests with its Latin pun on "I want", "apple" and "evil", the opera sees the action as a strange post-figuration of the loss of Eden.

Alan Brodie's lighting immeasurably enhances the atmosphere of menace.  Projections of the shadows of gnarled tree branches covering the entire stage, suggestions of passing clouds, pin spots lighting only faces in the dark all reinforced the sense of pervading doom.

Modern interpretations of James's tale suggest that the ghosts are the products of the Governess's repressed sexuality.  Piper's libretto that gives the ghosts a scene to themselves does not follow this view.  Accordingly, Newton does not seek to impose it on the production.  Instead he makes the focus of the play the struggle of an ordinary person, the Governess, with the force of evil, a theme prevalent in throughout Britten's work.

In this, his first directing assignment after stepping down as Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival, Newton draws performances from the cast of six as subtle and nuanced as those one has come to expect in his best productions at the Festival.

In the major role of the Governess, soprano Frédérique Vézina is outstanding.  Her empathic portrayal, her effortless control and the range and colour of her voice suggest she has a very bright future ahead.  It was announced that mezzo-soprano Colleen Skull, playing the housekeeper Mrs. Grose, was suffering from a bug making the rounds.  This likely accounts for her more generalized acting style and a certain dampened quality to a voice we know from previous performances is so vibrant and rich.

Tenor Peter Collins has gone from strength to strength masking his most powerful appearance yet as the ghost of Peter Quint.  He makes the frequent runs Britten gives him both seductive and sinister as they are meant to be.  His repeated sotto voce command "Take it" to Miles to steal a letter is truly chilling.  Former Ensemble member soprano Elizabeth McDonald gives a vivid account of the tortured spirit of Quint's mistress, Mrs. Jessel.

Former Ensemble member mezzo-soprano Andrea Ludwig is so effectively sings and acts the older child Flora one might believe she was actually the age of her character.  John Michael Schneider, who as a member of the COC Children's Chorus, actually is close to his character Miles's age, is a real find, fully able to communicate the complex emotions of this boy torn between worlds of reality and the supernatural.

Under conductor Richard Bradshaw the 13-member orchestra gave a brilliant account of the score.  Melodic lines passed seamlessly from instrument to instrument and the whole ensemble played with the utmost precision and clarity.  Bradshaw keeps Britten's ever-changing sonic webs of tension taut all the while bringing out the sensuous, neo-Impressionist beauty of the score.  Those who acted quickly enough to buy a ticket will feel very lucky indeed.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Andrea Ludwig, Colleen Skull, John Michael Schneider. ©2002 Michael Cooper.