The Turn of the Screw

OperaGlass Works were about to open with a stage production of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, conducted by John Wilson, in London just when Lockdown began. They had been rehearsing for 6 weeks and the production was at such an exciting point that they just couldn’t let it go. So they made a film. This is not just live capture. This is a new hybrid form that honours the spirit of the original theatre production but that also embraces the current constraints: the presence of the camera is declared and the intimacy of performing to a live audience is replaced by the singers singing directly into the lens. Shot on location at Wilton’s Music Hall, the extraordinary atmosphere and charm of this mid-nineteenth-century theatre suits the haunting ambiguities of this opera perfectly. The whole space, every corner, not just the stage, is used to tell the story.