London ffrr Recording, printed in the U.S.A.
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
The Turn of The Screw, Opus 54 (1954)
The English Opera Group Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Britten
Cast: Jennifer Vyvyan, Joan Cross, Peter Pears, Arda Mandikian, Olive Dyer, David Hemmings
Many nouns in is we find
To the masculine are assigned:
Amnis, axis, caulis, collis,
Clunis, crinis, fascis, follis,
Fustis, ignis, orbis, ensis,
Panis, piscis, postis, mensis,
Torris, unguis and canalis,
Vectis, vermis, and natalis,
Sanguis, pulvis, cucumis,
Lapis, casses, manes, glis…
“” Miles, Act 1, Scene 6
A boy is no boy for me if he is never wild. But bad, No, no! “” Mrs. Grose, Act 1, Scene 3
it's hard to listen to this opera without trying to parce out, here and there, bits and pieces of the subject matter of Peter Grimes—written by Britten a decade before Turning of the Screw—without hearing in the lilting tenor of Peter Pears (who starred in the title role of the recording of Grimes that I have closed the last two years of this journal work) the voice of that solitary fisherman. indeed the first we see Pears on stage (in the character of Peter Quint) is as a quickly-evaporating ghost. is that Grimes once more? is the fisherman back again to torment little boys with his hurly-burly?
Hours they spent together. Yes, miss, he made free with
her too—with lovely Miss Jessel, governess to those
pets, those angels, those innocent babes—and she
a lady, so far above him.
Dear God! Is there no end!
But he had ways to twist them round his little finger.
He liked them pretty, I can tell you, muss—and he had
his will, morning and night. “” Mrs. Grose, Act 1, Scene 5
Grimes, however, is no match for Quint’s cunning. the ambiguity of allegedly inadvertent abuse that earns Grimes a slight degree of sympathy is completely absent in The Screw. though the exact nature of Quint’s influence upon children in the opera (Miles and Flora) is a source of suspense throughout, his depravity is evident right from the opening prologue. “Mrs. Grose, what happened here, in this house?” (the Governess, Act 1 Scene 5) is the first whiff of trouble, that all is not well at Bly.
I know nothing of these things. Is this sheltered
place the wicked world where things unspoken of
can be?
“” Governess, Act 1, Scene 5
the opera's plot unfolds within the walls of a family mansion (Bly) occupied by a newly appointed Governess, two orphaned children (Miles and Flora), and the indispensable prototypical housekeeper (Mrs. Grose). then there are the two spectres from the attic, the aforementioned Peter Quint (a former manservant) and his reluctant accomplice Miss Jessel (former governess). the the relationship between these two and the children is, even on the face of it, only a brief source of mystery. the governess barely settles into her new position before she realizes that the pastoral setting and innocent-looking children that she's been charged with are certainly not as they appear.
Malo: I would rather be
Malo: in an apple-tree
Malo: than a naughty boy
Malo: in adversity…
“” Miles, Act 1, Scene 6
just beneath the surface of their curtsying, their English politeness, their nursery rhymes, is a story about their sexual abuse by Quint and Jessel. of course that is not explicitly stated in the opera. the language is craftily coded but the insinuations are as clear as day. it's a dark and brooding, incredibly depressing opera—and just where it seems the Governess’ efforts have struck a chord, and the light of day is about to fill the halls of Bly, the small candle of hope is snuffed out and we are reminded of the sickening refrain of the duet that begins Scene One of Act Two: the ceremony of innocence is drowned…
I am all things strange and bold,
The riderless horse
Snorting and stamping on the hard sea sand,
The hero-highwayman plundering the land.
I am King Midas with gold in his hand.
[…]
I am the hidden life that stirs
When the candle is out;
Upstairs and down, the footsteps barely heard.
The unknown gesture, and the soft, persistent word,
The long sighing flight of the night-winged bird.
“” Quint, Act 1, Scene 8
Benjamin Britten
a certain pessimistic hyperrealism is palpable throughout it's entirety, this is an opera by Benjamin Britten, after all (with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper). on the face of it: the opera can be described The Sound of Music meets The Others. the former of which is eerily similar to this opera’s plot, minus the child abuse, plus the Nazis. the latter of which, a 2001 film starring Nicole Kidman is likewise a terrifying tale of one woman's efforts to save her children from the influence of ‘the others’ in an isolated mansion be the lake, and likewise terrifying because the the terror is not in what is revealed in the final act but what was in plain sight all along, coded albeit in the precious language by which children communicate the world, and people, around them.
I seek a friend—
Obedient to follow where I lead,
Slick as a juggler’s mate to catch my thought,
Proud, curious, agile, he shall feed
My mounting power.
Then to his bright subservience I’ll expound
The desperate passions of a haunted heart,
And in that hour
“The ceremony of innocence of drowned”.
“” Quint, Act 2, Scene 1
two recurring thoughts that i had listening to this opera: the ongoing saga involving the late Jefferey Epstein and (the hopefully not soon to be late Ghislaine Maxwell)—the latter, though undeniably sinister in her own right, was evidently acting under the duress of the former. so too is Miss Jessel, even in her afterlife, controlled by Quint—though she herself is every bit as guilty, in the abuse of Flora, as Quint is in the abuse of Miles. the other thought, a harder to articulate, has to do with the oath of silence which Miles struggles to break throughout the opera. the Governess begs, down to the last scene, for Miles to name his tormentor, thereby confirming the identity of his abuser. it isn’t until this very last scene the the poor little boy summons the courage to declare “Peter Quint, you devil!”. it’s a little too late, the ceremony of innocence is drowned, the boy collapses in the arms of the Governess—curtain. likewise, how much of masculinity depends on the innumerable oaths of silence that we swallow in the process of becoming?
‘Three Boys” Makovsky Vladimir, 1911
Why are they so charming? Why so unnaturally good?
I tell you they are not with us, but with the others.
“” Governess, Act 2, Scene 2
there’s a parable that is pertinent here, one of the money that you hear growing up in the Primary School system in the part of Nigeria i’m from, though I’m sure variants of it exist in this part of the world too. it is of an Egyptian king who’s palace is raided. the parable goes: king son, upon hearing the intruders breaking through the palace gates, runs and hides in a pantry. the king and his soldiers in the meantime successfully defends the palace and rid it of every last assailant. when the chaos dies down and the king is sure that his palace is secure, he asks one of his guards if they’ve seen his son. a guard reluctantly admits that the prince was seen running into a pantry and closing the door behind him. the king is furious at the guard, and insists the guard must’ve mistaken his sons identity, for the son that he raised would never choose to run and hide instead of defending the palace. and so the guard brings the king to the door of the pantry, and the king, to sure-up his confidence that his son would do no such thing—that, it is more likely that he instead died in the fight—commands his guards to begin bricking-up the door to the pantry. for when complete, the king intends the brick wall to be a monument to his fallen son. the prince is, of course, in the pantry. he heard every single word uttered by the king while standing in front of the pantry, and he heard every single brick placed in front of the door. before the placing of the last brick, goes this parable, the prince is heard calling out “Father, it is I!”. the king, hearing and recognizing his son’s voice, lowers his eyes and, turning away from his guard, commands them to place the last brick. So it goes. That is a window into the barricades that are erected by the male psyche in order to maintain this intergenerational muchacho-strut: from father to son, from son to father, to son and so on. And so the mass of us, emerge, if at all, walled up by our many oaths of silence.
Cradles for cats
Are string and air.
If you let go
There’s nothing there.
But if we are neat
And nimble and clever
Pussy-cat’s cradle will
Go on for ever.
“” Mrs. Grose, Act 2, Scene 6
For me, the only thing more shocking than the insinuations of even the most conservative theory about who and what exactly took place on Epstein’s Island, is the nonchalance with which the public consciousness has responded to it. The shock at the horror of it is at worst missing, or at best performative. Violence towards children falls in league with our response to every other kind of violence: so it goes. If a society feels to protect its most vulnerable, does it matter at all what else it ‘succeeds’ at doing? On the other hand, could there be anything better than to raise children that are loud and free.
Governess — What is it, Miles? Do you want to go and play?
Miles — Awfully! I will tell you everything. I will!
“” Act 2, Scene 8
‘Everything Has Changed’ by Denis Sarahzin
Back to the surface of it: I am in awe of how incredibly well constructed this opera is. The world it suggests is fairly encompassing, but the materials used to do so are austere. The musical landscape of the opera is arranged around one single theme established after the prologue: a gyrating lines on strings (perhaps a fitting nod to the opening line of ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B. Yeats, from which the aforementioned ‘ceremony of innocence’ is referenced later in the opera). This theme gives birth to 15 variations, each of which is inserted between every scene in the opera. More often than not these variations are quite different from the original theme (the ‘Screw’) which, turning and turning in the widening gyre of this twisted plot, is practically on recognizable by the final scene. One of the things I find addictive about Peter Grimes is the music for orchestra, particularly the four interludes— otherwise known as The Four Seas—that separate that opera’s scenes and gives it it’s unparalleled cohesion and peculiar arc. It seems the opposite of cohesion was Britten’s emphasis for the interludes of The Screw, but the strength of the thematic foundation nevertheless adheres the plot to a single but increasingly divergent musical dimension.
Perhaps because of the unfolding of the Ghislaine Maxwell story, and the restrictions on gathering, due to Covid, that the industry suffers in the near future: I think a ensemble/quartet reduction of the score for this opera would make for a great chamber production of it in the near future. It’s particularly striking how modern its character is, and particularly unfortunate how relevant its subject matter also is.
Despite the many years that have passed since this opera premiered in October 1954, there is still a great deal of ambiguity i it’s plot that leaves room for ambitious interpretations for ambitious productions. What exactly is it, for example that makes Miles think he’s bad (“Malo. malo. Malo” he calls out frequently,)—or, to temporarily sidestep the incredibly coded language of the opera: did Miles kill Peter Quint? It’s not a ridiculous interpretation, as only the skimpiest details surrounding Quint’s death are revealed (more or less: he fell on the ice). Perhaps Flora was involved too? As the cause of Miss Jessel’s death is also equally elusive. The children are most certainly not as innocent as the Governess is initially supposes. Then there is the Governess herself, who leaves her children behind in order to take the position at Bly. Do you not wander the feet of her own children of every child left alone under the auspices broken men and women? In fact I’m reminded very much by the Governess of Ellen Orford (the perhaps unwitting accomplice to the abuse of Grimes’s young apprentices). Certainly no one emerges out of the story with their innocence intact.
Behind my eyes a familiar child
I take his hand and he finally smiles
Be gentle with yourself as you uncover
Your best kept secrets yet to be discovered
In stillness, boys, clear water to the bottom
You will do better in the morning
I will do better in the morning
One of my favourite songs from the Song of the Week segent in the last 52 weeks is ‘Better in the Morning’ by Birdtalker (week38). I hear in it a similar wrestle against some form of that oath of silence, a reclaiming of the songwriter’s own boyhood, and an insistence on breaking the cycle of violence—or at least ending on a more optimistic note then The Screw:
(That’s the week…)
yes indeed, that’s the week: all 52 of them. here’s to another run (“god willing and if the creek don’t rise”).
Throwback to: YR1 Week52, YR2 Week52
Click here for the full 2019/2020 roster of selected works