The best thing about this recording of Britten’s greatest chamber opera is
the conducting of Richard Farnes. Farnes has done stunning Britten work in
the theatre with Opera North, including a brilliant
Turn of the
Screw in 2010. He knows precisely how to pace this work to capitalise
on not just the musical elements but also the horror inherent in the story.
Poignantly, the concert which gave birth to this recording was meant to be
conducted by Sir Colin Davis, but he died only two days before the
performance (see
review). It is all the more to Farnes’ credit
that he could pull of such a brilliant performance at such short notice. He
builds a palpable sense of dread into the unfolding story. Britten’s score
performs much of this task for him, but Farnes injects a palpable sense of
urgency into moments such as Variation 10 (after the Bells scene) which only
makes the tension build all the more, and he gets the best out of tricky
moments such as Quint getting Miles to steal the letter. He is helped by
brilliant playing from the reduced ensemble of the LSO. The great thing
about this opera is that the number of musicians required is so small - and
so skilled - that every ensemble assembled for it is bespoke, and the
playing here is first class. You get the best of the playing and the best of
Farnes in the introduction to Act 2 (Variation 8) where each instrument
seems to speak quietly into the void before handing over to another. The
final variation is so tense that music as we know it threatens to break down
altogether.
Unfortunately the singing isn’t quite on a par with this. The two ghosts
are the finest. Andrew Kennedy’s Quint deserves comparison with the best.
There is an eerie, ethereal quality to his voice that is really quite
uncanny, but he is nearly always beautiful, and he doesn’t forget that it is
this character’s seductiveness that makes him so dangerous. Katherine
Broderick makes a very distinctive sound as Miss Jessel, singing with a
sense of the deranged which makes her stand out from the other ladies. Sally
Matthews gets better as the opera progresses, and from the scene in the
bedroom onwards she is very convincing, but she takes a while to get to that
level. In the first act she is too shrill, pointing up the characteristic
nervousness to the detriment of everything else. I found her both too
histrionic and too anonymous to convince us that this character was going on
a developmental journey. Catherine Wyn-Rogers is a solid enough Mrs Grose,
but Lucy Hall is too obviously adult to convince as a small girl and, while
Michael Clayton-Jolly rises to the challenge of Miles, he is one-dimensional
in comparison with some others on disc.
Welcome as this is, the weaknesses in the singing mean that it can’t take
precedence over the finest
Screw on disc, the one from Daniel
Harding and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Starring Bostridge’s
nonpareil Quint and Joan Rodgers’ edgy Governess, that one will be
hard to surpass. However, this LSO set does have its budget price on its
side and, in accordance with LSO Live’s usual high standards, it includes
the full English libretto in the booklet.
Simon Thompson
Previous reviews:
Paul Corfield Godfrey and
Brian Wilson
Britten discography & review index:
The turn of the screw
