Revival of Benjamin Britten’s ”The Turn of the Screw” by The Opera at the Castle in Szczecin
Britten (1913-1976) will revisit Szczecin this weekend. The Opera at the Castle plans to show „The Turn of the Screw” on March 2 and 3. The opera thriller premiered in 2016, marking the first staging of the show in Poland. The director Natalia Babińska claims:
The libretto of “The Turn of the Screw” exudes the spirit of the composer’s times, the spirit of the then inequality of women and men, also in the moral sense. Such a story could never be written today, because it is no longer impressive: women have become independent and stronger; old social differences have been leveled. Having said that, a number of things remain relevant. First of all, we keep sweeping the problem of child eroticism under the carpet. In general, the fear embodied in the ghosts in “The Turn of the Screw” is precisely the fear of eroticism, something evil, repressed, immoral.
The staging was considered the best 2016 show in Poland by the jury of XI Jan Kiepura Theatre Music Awards. “The Turn of the Screw” also received awards for the best direction and best set design in 2016.
The musical director of the performance is Jerzy Wołosiuk. The cast features Bożena Bujnicka as Governess and Pavlo Tolstoy as Peter Quint, among others.
The plot of the opera, based around the novella by Henry James, is set in a mysterious country house in Victorian England. A young governess is sent over to look after two orphaned siblings Miles and Flora. She gradually becomes aware of ghosts haunting the children, with the events eventually leading to a tragic outcome…