Tag Archives: britten

Surrounded by these ghouls; the living and the dead

Posted on by
2

Britten’s Owen Wingrave is one of very few operas written for television. It’s also the second opera Britten wrote based on a Henry James ghost story. Owen Wingrave comes from a family of soldiers and their portraits and their ghosts dominate the family mansion. Owen is an officer cadet and a brilliant student who, for reasons of conscience, decides to abandon the family line of work. The family, his fiancée, his ancestors and the house are not at all keen on the idea. There is no happy ending.

The version I watched is a 2001 production directed by Margaret Williams for Channel Four. The story has been updated to the 1950s which works fine. Filming is extremely atmospheric mixing location shots with archive footage of troops parading in London. Clever use is made of fades into black and white and a certain ambiguity surrounds the ghost figures. Musically and dramatically it is very strong throughout. The ever reliable Gerald Finley sings the title role brilliantly. He often seems at his best in modern music and this is no exception. He is both powerful and sensitive while always remaining thoroughly musical. The other stand out is Peter Savidge as the military academic Coyle; the one character who makes a real effort to understand Owen. His is a really sensitive, nuanced and finely sung performance. I also enjoyed the rather fetching Swedish mezzo Charlotte Hellekant as Kate, Owen’s girlfriend. The only singer I have reservations about is Josephine Bairstow as Miss Wingrave, Owen’s aunt. She seems a bit shrill to me but maybe that’s intentional. It’s certainly one with the role. All of the singers articulate clearly, sound idiomatic in English and are well recorded. This is more than usually important as there are no subtitles on the disc. Kent Nagano directs the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in a neat, tight reading of the score which is twelve tone influenced with a lot of tuned percussion. There seem, appropriately enough, to be a few references back to the War Requiem buried in there. The choral contribution, which is pretty small, is from the choristers of Westminster Cathedral Choir. All in all this is a very fine realisation of a work I’m glad I have now seen as, up until today, it was one of only a couple of Britten operas that I had neither seen nor heard.

Technically it’s a pretty limited affair. The picture is 16:9 anamorphic and the only sound option is Dolby stereo. As mentioned before there are no subtitles. The disc does include an hour long documentary about Britten called The Hidden Heart. It’s a bit vague and waffly but it does include some interesting archive footage. The disc is available from Kultur in North America and Arthaus in Europe.

Here’s the preview:

Second thoughts (2013) here.

The Turn of the Screw

Posted on by
Reply

The usual way to do an opera DVD is to film a live stage performance. I guess because this is also the cheapest way. Various alternative ways of committing opera to film have been tried; some using the singers as actors and some using more photogenic actors with the singing dubbed over. In 2004 BBC Wales made a version of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw using the singers as actors. It makes for an interesting film. For example it allows for an appropriately aged girl to play Flora where in the opera house the role has to given to a young adult soprano. It also allows for the interior monologues, which feature a lot in this piece, to be sung with the actor not moving his/her lips. It also allows for some notable location shots by the lake and in the churchyard (Highgate Cemetery was used). Director, Katie Mitchell, makes good use of the options available to her to play with the elements of perception vs reality which are quite hard to communicate on stage.

The singing and playing are excellent and thoroughly idiomatic throughout. Mark Padmore (Prologue/Quint) sounds as if Peter Pears has come to haunt the production. Lisa Milne is thoroughly competent as the troubled governess and the ever dependable Diana Montague is an excellent foil as Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper. Catrin Wyn Davis is a very good Miss Jessel; scary as Hell but just not quite completely demented. The children are excellent. Nicholas Kirby Johnson as Miles and Caroline Wise as Flora look and sound like children. Better, they inhabit the roles of upper class Edwardian children almost uncannily. The tricky score (the vocal scenes are each preceded by a variation on a twelve tone theme) is played really well by the London Sinfonietta under Richard Hickox. All in all this is a really good presentation of one of Britten’s most interesting but problematic works.

The DVD is released by Opus Arte and it’s pretty much up to the standard of their recent offerings. The 16:9 picture is average to good DVD quality. Sound options are LPCM stereo or Dolby 5.1. A range of subtitles are included. English speakers won’t need the subtitles as the diction and articulation throughout are exemplary and the voices are never overwhelmed by the band, and nor should they be when a work is scored for thirteen musicians.

The Opus Arte trailer gives a pretty good idea of what to expect.