sat 20/04/2024

The Seckerson Tapes: Opera North Double Bill | reviews, news & interviews

The Seckerson Tapes: Opera North Double Bill

The Seckerson Tapes: Opera North Double Bill

Backstage at Opera North's new production of The Turn of the Screw

Opera North explores the creation of the violin in a new opera 'The Gypsy Bible' (above) and unveils a new production of 'The Turn of the Screw'

"It is a curious tale. I have it written in faded ink, a woman's hand, governess to two children, long ago..." So begins Benjamin Britten's operatic re-imagining of Henry James's ghostly chiller The Turn of the Screw. Oscar Wilde called it "a most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale" but how are we supposed to interpret it? In a remote country house, a governess fights to protect two children from menacing spirits. But are these spirits real or imagined?

"It is a curious tale. I have it written in faded ink, a woman's hand, governess to two children, long ago..." So begins Benjamin Britten's operatic re-imagining of Henry James's ghostly chiller The Turn of the Screw. Oscar Wilde called it "a most wonderful, lurid, poisonous little tale" but how are we supposed to interpret it? In a remote country house, a governess fights to protect two children from menacing spirits. But are these spirits real or imagined?

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