The Turn of the Screw

Introduction

An inexperienced governess is engaged by a gentleman in London to look after his orphaned niece and nephew who live with an old housekeeper at Bly, an isolated country estate. The young woman is given absolute responsibility for the children and strict instructions not to contact their uncle under any circumstances. The Governess soon finds contentment educating such engaging children and being in the company of the simple, honest housekeeper, Mrs Grose. The idyll, however, is to be very short-lived. An unexpected turn of events leads the Governess to suspect that the house is haunted by two ghosts whom she believes to be corrupting her young charges. The story becomes a desperate battle for the children's souls, with tragic consequences - but are the ghosts a real threat, or merely a figment of the Governess' over-active imagination?

Regarded by many as the finest of all his stage-works, The Turn of the Screw, Britten's final chamber opera, was written in the incredibly short period of just four months in 1954. The work is based on the novel of the same name by Henry James which Britten had known for many years: a tale of good versus evil, natural versus the supernatural, possession and exorcism, set within the domestic proprieties of the Essex country house of Bly - ingredients which would have had an obvious appeal for the composer. Above all, Britten's favourite theme of the corruption of innocence must have attracted him more than any other.

The story also lends itself to Britten's gifts for apt and distinctive musical characterisation, the relatively 'pure' and uncomplicated music for the opera's mortals contrasting strongly with the alluring, other-worldly music associated with the ghosts.

The work is one of the most tautly constructed and tightly-knit of all Britten's operas, the musical material almost wholly derived from the twelve-note 'Screw' theme heard near the work's opening. However, this very concentration helps give this work its overwhelming feeling of intense claustrophobia and its astonishing dramatic power can have a shattering impact in the theatre.

Reproduced with the kind permission of the Britten-Pears Foundation