The death last week of Dame Felicity Lott had me thinking about English singers of that generation who featured a lot in the first live opera and recordings that I experienced back in the 1970s. A bit of digging around led me to a 1993 recording of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with Philip Langridge (who died in 2010) as Quint and Felicity Lott (not yet a Dame) as the Governess. It also, perhaps surprisingly, features American Wagnerian Nadine Secunde as Miss Jessel. Less surprisingly, it was recorded in Aldeburgh with Steuart Bedford conducting.

There are only a handful of CD recordings of this work available so I’m happy to say that this one is excellent. All the adult singers (including Phyllis Cannan who sings Mrs Grose) have excellent diction and a really good sense of the Britten style. The chiuldren; Sam Pay (Miles) and Eileen Hulse (Flora) are very capable too. ,Bedford and the Aldeburgh Ensemble are also idiomatically excellent. The overall atmosphere of menace is well maintained throughout especially in Quint’s scene with Miles and Miss Jessel’s scene (Variation 10).

Technically it’s fine. It’s a nicely balanced and clear CD quality recording available as a 2CD physical set or as MP3 or 44.1kHz/16 bit lossless. There’s a booklet but the quality of the diction means one doesn’t need the libretto.

There are only a couple of other recordings available and they don’t include Britten’s own 1955 recording. So this is a pretty good bet!

Catalogue information: Naxos Opera Classics 8660109-10