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Who’s Screwy Now?

By Jason Victor Serinus

It was a bit like “second-try night.” Only last fall, three of the principals in San Francisco Lyric Opera’s current production of Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw — Anja Strauss (the Governess), Brooks Fisher (Miles), and Madelaine Matej (Flora) — appeared in the same roles in Oakland Opera Theater’s abysmal production of that opera. Although only Strauss was onstage the night I reviewed OOT’s screwed-up Screw for San Francisco Classical Voice, all reports confirm that the principals suffered an equal fate at the hands of a company director who seemed to have no clue what Britten’s eponymous adaptation of Henry James’ ghost story was about.

Madelaine Matej as Flora

All photos by David Ransom

Everyone in that October production seemed to be floundering, as though having been denied permission to honor their understanding of Britten’s intent and do what their natural intelligence and instincts told them to do. In addition, all the musicians, both vocal and instrumental, were sabotaged by poor acoustics that robbed Britten’s astoundingly beautiful and expressive score of much of its beauty.

Now, eight months later, Strauss, Fisher, and Matej have been given another chance to demonstrate what they can do in their respective roles. Thankfully, their directors, San Francisco Lyric Opera’s Artistic Director and Conductor Barnaby Palmer and Stage Director Heather Carolo, seem to have done their homework. Carolo demonstrates her understanding of the story in her brief program note, when she asks, “Who is seeing what, [sic] have the children been visited and selected by specters? Is the Governess herself stable or completely insane? Who is the unseen man with such strange instructions for a woman in charge of two innocent children? Is what you are seeing actually being experienced or is it all in the mind of a character? We shall see!”

To Tell the Truth

I expect that Carolo intended to tease in that last sentence. Because if she meant to imply that this production, performed on the relatively large stage of Cowell Theater (and running through June 7), would set the record straight about an opera in which homosexual pedophilia and maternal hysteria commingle, it did not. Except for one brief scene, in which the young Miles undid a bit of the Governess’ perfect blond hair, Strauss’ character seemed so picture-perfect healthy, so beautifully voiced, and so optimally poised that it was hard to believe that she was delusional. Even when she looked most upset, her feelings seemed only skin deep when compared to Lara Bruckmann’s deeply anguished, visually arresting, and movingly voiced Miss Jessel. Strauss seemed unwilling or unable to go all the way.

Anja Strauss as the Governess

Nor did either ghost (if indeed they were ghosts, as opposed to being either manifestations of collective hysteria or projections in the Governess’ mind) suggest ambiguity. Indeed, the personages were so vivid and moving that much of the opera seemed to revolve around them.

Lara Bruckmann as Miss Jessel

Bruckmann’s vocal excellence and desperate beauty were matched by Trey Costerisan’s alluringly voiced and disturbingly youthful Peter Quint. Although few tenors could possibly equal the natural decadence and depravity that Peter Pears (the role’s originator) could summon forth with his innately eerie sound, Costerisan had just enough malevolence about him to make his seduction inescapable.

Trey Costerisan as Peter Quint

As for the children, Fisher was a standout for his impeccable vocalization and convincing portrayal. It’s hard to tell how old he is, but my guess is that his days as a boy soprano are nearing their end. If the voice remains intact after it changes, we may have a future star here. Matej, while lovely onstage, seemed a paler presence, far more reticent and less fleshed out as a character. Which may very well be how it was meant to be.

Kathleen Moss as Mrs. Grose

As Mrs. Grose, Kathleen Moss impressed from first note to last. (To tell the truth, everyone onstage did.) Always supportive and sympathetic, she seemed the sanest of the embodied bunch. But who knows? Maybe she was the great enabler in this gothic tale.

Beyond Character

Scenic designer Jean-François Revon’s muted-color video projections unscored the inherent ambiguity of the libretto. A constant part of the backdrop, the slides progressed from lovely aspects of nature and realistic portrayals of parts of a country estate to scenes of decay. In Act 2, walls of several rooms seem marred by peeling paint or plaster. In one particularly telling slide, windows, walls, everything was distorted for hallucinatory effect. Claustrophobia was also indicated. The slides were a bit too obvious, though they did suggest decay, on multiple levels.

Palmer and the orchestra brought optimal clarity to the haunting score. The variety of sounds that César Cancino drew from his Yamaha Clavinova (I think it was) and celeste were especially compelling.

Putting everything together, it would be lovely to say that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. But it wasn’t. As fine as the production may have been, there was nothing especially transcendent or revelatory about it (to the extent that anything was meant to be revealed). It was one of those “hmm, that was very interesting” nights at the opera in which The Turn of the Screw’s ultimate potential lay one dimension away.

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