The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw description

Prepare to be spooked. When a young governess is frightened by strange unseen forces in a remote country house, and her charges seem to be haunted, things quickly become menacing. Benjamin Britten’s innovative score meets the brilliant 1898 horror novella by Henry James to create an operatic masterpiece.

13 instruments create an extraordinarily threatening background

Thirteen instruments combine in an unusual way to create a threatening soundscape that evokes the scary plot perfectly. Both acts are split into eight scenes each and the screw theme steadily tightens the tension until it’s almost unbearable. It’s a lot like a horror film, and you’ll leave the venue feeling well and truly ruffled. You might even sleep with the lights on.

This story is classic horror all the way. An inexperienced governess arrives at a remote country home to care for two orphaned children. They seem troubled, maybe even possessed, and she quickly becomes frightened. When she starts hearing spooky sounds late at night and sees mysterious figures and faces at the windows, she worries she’s imagining things.

Nerve shredding stuff with an all-star cast of singers

With an ending described as ‘nerve shredding’, this opera is full of emotion, unusually dark. Directed and designed by Isabella Bywater, it stars Ailish Tynan as the governess. Dead Peter Quint and Miss Jessel the deceased ex-governess are beautifully sung by Robert Murray and the former ENO Harewood artist Eleanor Dennis. Gweneth Ann Rand plays Mrs Grose and Alan Oke sings the Prologue.

Irish ENO soprano Ailish Tynan won the 2003 Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. She was also a member of the Vilar Young Artist Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and a BBC New Generation Artist. Robert Murray studied at the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio, winning second prize in the Kathleen Ferrier awards 2003 and a Jette Parker Young Artist at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Eleanor Dennis won a 2023 Carole Rees Award from The Mastersingers, a Scottish Soprano from the Royal College of Music's International Opera School.

Duncan Ward and Charlotte Corderoy conduct the opera on different dates, both on their ENO debut. Paul Anderson is the Lighting Designer, Jon Driscoll is the Video Designer, and Myfanwy Piper is the Librettist.

Henry James’ horror novella, adapted for opera by Benjamin Britten, premiered in 1954 and has been recreated numerous times since then on stage and screen, including an off-Broadway production in 1999 and a co-production with Hammer at the Almeida Theatre in 2013.

Playing at London Coliseum

St Martin's Lane, London, WC2N 4ES GB (venue info)

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