"THE TURN OF THE SCREW" at Chicago Opera Theater
BY LUCIA MAURO
Director Diane Paulus’ decision to have the shell of a grand piano jutting from the corner of the Athenaeum Theatre’s stage throughout her bleakly engrossing production of Benjamin Britten’s "The Turn of the Screw" visually points to the unsettling contradictions of this opera. The Chicago Opera Theater staging, which once again pairs Paulus with fiercely intelligent conductor Jane Glover, dangles the audiences on a tight rope between pure innocence and brazen experience – all the while following the ambiguous contours of Britten’s chilling score.
And it’s the gutted piano that kept crying out to me. It can be a lake, where a child’s doll is drowned, or a coffin – or the memory of something melodic and noble. It draws us into a cavern of emotional dissonance – into an abyss. Even the exposed brick of the stage’s back wall and an idyllic outdoor menagerie of a swing and rocking horse grow menacing with the intrusion of lilies sticking out of the floor – as if the children are dancing on so many graves.
This collaborative staging, which features Kevin Adams’ chiaroscuro lighting and Mark Wendland’s sepia-Gothic sets and over-sized Victorian costumes, takes possession of the audience’s senses. Like the 1954 English opera itself – based on Henry James’ psycho-sexual ghost story – all the elements seep into one’s bones, with just the right amount of self-doubt coursing through the veins to make the horror all the more potent.
In "The Turn of the Screw" – featuring a rhythmically creepy but poetic libretto by Myfanwy Piper – a Governess travels to a small town outside London to care for two orphaned children, Flora and Miles. She lives with them and the accommodating but unaware housekeeper Mrs. Grose. The squeaky-clean nature of the children slowly gives way to suggestions of "The Bad Seed" or "The Omen," as Flora, and especially Miles, appear to be possessed by unseen evil forces.
Those invisible forces soon take the shape of the home’s deceased former governess Miss Jessel and her unbridled lover Peter Quint, the now-dead valet. When the new Governess becomes aware of these specters, she is determined to protect the already-doomed children and battle it out with these irrepressible spirits of corruption. But, while evil here is given a human face, both James and Britten make it clear that the vilest ideas can creep into the "safest" of places. Evil can be anywhere, anything or anyone.
In "The Turn of the Screw," it’s also possible that the Governess is becoming mentally unhinged. These could be figments of her imagination. On a more visceral level, the work addresses the darkest of taboos – particularly the suggestion that Peter Quint sexually abused Miles. Quint also seems to have gotten Miss Jessel pregnant, and she lost the baby (perhaps even died while having an abortion). These issues bring to light the destructive effects of Victorian prudishness, silence and hypocrisy.
COT’s truly heart-pounding production features not only a richly symbolic vision (one that can turn a playground into a graveyard with a mere shift in tone) but exquisite performances – namely soprano Arianna Zukerman as the agitated, over-protective Governess; soprano Kara Shay Thomson as the captivatingly macabre Miss Jessel; and two brave and mature performances by young artists Elizabeth Reiter as Flora and Adam Benkendorf as Miles.
Tenor Robin Leggate’s Peter Quint emits a seductive sense of menace, balanced against mezzo-soprano Kathleen Flynn’s doting but delusional Mrs. Grose.
The fact that we can see Quint lurking in the wings or up in the fly space reminds us that we are viewing a theatrical production. And the piano can be a piano or something less harmonious. This is a deliberate contrivance. Nevertheless, from such artful contrivance and stylized horror, the ugly truth about the ongoing co-existence of good and evil oozes into our psyches.
Chicago Opera Theater’s production of "The Turn of the Screw" runs through April 5 at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport. Tickets: $35-$75. Call 312-704-8414 or log onto www.chicagooperatheater.org.
