THEATER REVIEW: THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Flora (Ashley Emerson) and Miss Jessel (Tamara Wilson) in The Turn of the Screw.

L.A. Opera gets twisted

By Ed Rampell

In Anthony Burgess’ novel, A Clockwork Orange, and Stanley Kurbrick’s film adaptation, the Beethoven-loving, ultra-violent uber-droog, Alex (Malcolm McDowell) uses a sci-fi Pidgin English expression, “real horrorshow.” In the same spirit composer Benjamin Britten’s operatic adaptation of Henry James’ novella, The Turn of the Screw, could be described as “real creepshow.”

Unlike its predecessors, L.A. Opera’s last opera of the season is no Gioachina Rossini romp like like The Turk in Italy or mirthful Mozart-ian concoction like The Marriage of Figaro – The Turn of the Screw is indeed a deeply creepy tale. So opera auds better buckle up those seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and this creepshow is not for the faint of heart. This is not only a chilling ghost story, but also apparently a look at child molestation. When James (whose brother William was an eminent psychologist) wrote The Turn of the Screw in 1898, and Britten composed his opera (with libretto by Myfanwy Piper) in 1954, the arts were far more straitjacketed by censorship than they are today. Now, with our greater freedom, the implicit can be made more explicit, on page, screen and stage.

Original production director Jonathan Kent and stage director Francesca Gilpin take full advantage of that liberty, but that’s not to say they’re taking liberties with the saucy source materials. In a nutshell the plot is: A Jane Eyre-like young Governess (soprano Patricia Racette) travels to her new post at Bly in the English countryside, where she is to tutor a sister and brother, Flora (soprano Ashley Emerson) and Miles (Michael Kepler Meo, who is 12). The country home is presided over by a middle-aged housekeeper, Mrs. Grose (Dubliner Ann Murray, a mezzo-soprano).

But the quartet is not alone. Bly is haunted by the troubled spirits of the Governess’ predecessor, Miss Jessel (soprano Tamara Wilson), and the diabolical valet for the offstage property owner, Peter Quint (tenor William Burden). How did they shed their mortal coils to attain their current spectral disposition? For the time being, Dear Reader, suffice it to say that things didn’t quite go well for the star-crossed couple. As Henry slyly scribbled: “Come, there was something between them.”

Unlike L.A. Opera’s rendition of another horror story, The Fly (which was directed a few seasons back by David Cronenberg, who’d also helmed the 1986 remake of the classic 1958 sci-fi flick starring Vincent Price), The Turn of the Screw does not have nudity. However, the adult ghosts do lie in bed with the children in a scene that is rather suggestive. Screw, of course, can be a slang word for intercourse while Peter is sometimes slang for penis and Quint sounds like a vulgar word for vagina. (Hey! I’m just reviewing this stuff; I didn’t write the source short story -- home Henry!) It’s not for nothing that the devilish Quint and Miss Jessel sing, “The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned,” a line pilfered from William Butler Yeats' poem, The Second Coming (ed. no comment).

The music for Britten’s chamber opera, conducted by James Conlon, is often dissonant. Meo’s lovely soprano voice stands in stark counterpoint to his character Miles’ ominous coming of age. The casting of performers in The Turk in Italy perfectly matched the characters they were playing, but it’s, uh, screwed up here. Although she does a good job, Emerson seems a bit long in the tooth for Flora, who is a child in Henry's novella. And without meaning to sound cruel, Wilson does not live up to Henry's billing of Miss Jessel as an “extraordinary beauty.” I realize that in operas performers are often cast in roles according to their voices, but if they do not embody the type of character they’re playing in terms of age, body size and the like, it might cause some cognitive dissonance for ticket buyers, and Britten’s brittle score is already dissonant enough.

Scenery and costume designer Paul Brown’s garb conveys an impression of late Victorian England, but is not fabulous. However, Brown’s sets, accompanied by Mark Henderson and David Manion’s lighting, are minimal yet fluid, cinematically keeping pace with 16 different scenes. The scenery and lighting range from moody to macabre to morbid, and literally set the scene. From an organic perspective the sets and lighting are this opera’s most expressive elements in terms of projecting the underlying warped and thwarted sexual sensibility of Henry -- a gay man who was in the closet.

Burden does a creditable job as Quint, but lacks the menacing demeanor and brooding presence of Marlon Brando as what may be the quintessential Quint, in Michael Winner’s eerie 1972, The Nightcomers, a sort of prequel to The Turn of the Screw.

Although rarely seen, The Nightcomers was just screened at the American Cinematheque’s Santa Monica outpost, The Aero Theatre. Brando starred in it during his decade-long Diaspora of duds after the 1962 film, Mutiny on the Bounty, and before The Godfather. But no matter how bad the flick flopped, Brando was constitutionally incapable of giving an uninteresting performance, and The Nightcomers is his second most sexually graphic film after 1973’s Last Tango in Paris. Brando is pitch perfect as Quint, who symbolizes the unbridled id, which is why Mrs. Grose grouses that “Quint was much too free” in Henry's novella. When it comes to acting and stage presence, Burden may be no Brando, but then again, to be fair, I doubt Brando could have sung an aria like Burden can.


The Turn of the Screw runs through March 27 at L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Downtown Los Angeles. For information: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com.