Truth and Ambiguity

Oakland Opera Theater’s The Turn of the Screw is both a triumph of spirit and a stumbling of conception. The triumph, as Michael Zwiebach recounts in this week's feature, involved moving the entire company and adapting a production intended for one venue to another twice as large, all within the span of a few too-short weeks. As for the stumble, I admit that my previous acquaintance with this opera was via the acclaimed New York City Opera production starring Lauren Flanigan. There, the intentional ambiguity of the music and libretto, based on Henry James' 1898 novella of the same name, left an indelible impression. Is the Governess, hired by an unseen man to care for his wards, suffering from delusion and mental illness, or is the country estate where she takes charge of siblings Flora and Miles truly haunted, or both? And what about the lower-class servant, Mrs. Grose: What does she really know, and why is she unable to intervene? Oakland Opera Theater has moved James' setting from a mid-19th-century English country house to a Southern plantation, with Mrs. Grose the housekeeper transformed into Mama Grose, a lower-class "Negro" of dubious intelligence. Peter Quint, the deceased valet who had his way with the children (unambiguously depicted when Miles pulls up his fly after Quint’s ghost caresses him), and Miss Jessel the deceased housekeeper, are split in two, their ghostly presences played by a pair of aerial artists who have their way in the air as well as onstage. That Mama Grose adopts a mock-Negro accent while others employ mock-English pronunciation is only one of the production’s many anomalies.

All Photos by Ralph Granich

The main issue is that the different cast members seem to have different conceptions of what's really going on. As the Governess, the beautiful, solidly voiced, diction-perfect Anja Strauss appeared far too healthy to be deranged. Strauss was all buoyant optimism one minute, confused the next, scared one minute, and resolute the next. Yes, she had some wide-eyed moments, but not that wide, and certainly not very deep. Ultimately, she conveyed confusion over how to play the role, which is not the ambiguity Britten intended. (In all fairness, this is at least partly the responsibility of Dean, who had a lot on his hands.) This observer felt dropped into an emotional netherworld where even Britten’s marvelous score, lacking chill under Deirdre McClure’s baton, seemed much ado about something other than what was playing out onstage.

Peter Quint and Miss Jessel seemed undeniably real to Miles, wonderfully depicted with a combination of innocence and wicked derangement by occasionally strained boy soprano Nick Kempen, and Flora, portrayed with ideal, blank-faced innocence and charming little-girl voice by Kelty Morash. Adding to ghostly credibility, the voice of Peter Quint was beautifully sung by the gifted, authoritatively voiced American tenor Gerald Seminatore, who has sung the role at the Britten-Pears Institute at the Aldeburgh Festival. Quint’s body was depicted with snakelike, demonic spookiness by tall, thin, demented-looking Danny Starling. Marta Johansen, as the voice of Miss Jessel, did well in a role that, like Strauss', did not allow her to display her considerable vocal beauty. Emily Leap left less of an impression as the body of Miss Jessel. As Mama Grose, Lori Willis paired mushy diction with beautifully projected, rounded tone and a dutiful, stab-at-acting portrayal. As a longtime Oakland Opera Theater fan, I can only hope that Dean finds the time to step back, take in the big picture, and develop a coherent approach for the remaining four performances.

Meanwhile, there are many good things to say about the new space. Twice as large and consequently more flexible than the Metro, it comes complete with its own gothic labyrinth: a second, equally large adjacent empty space, a rear warehouse (also empty), and over the river and through the woods and out the backdoor several hundred steps away, two porta-potties facing the railroad tracks. It also has acoustics reportedly so bright that huge curtains had to be hastily hung over several walls to render instruments less noisy. While doing so robs voices of reverberation, their direct impact is quite live. Although the venue affords welcome breathing room to the formerly cramped members of the 13-piece orchestra, it remains disconcerting to have the sounds of instruments coming from a different place than the voices. To help achieve musical coherence, I hope Dean will consider constructing a higher stage and much-needed raked seating, which would finally allow the company's orchestra to take its rightful place in front of and below the stage. I also urge him to ditch the fundraising pitch at the end of the opera, which intrudes upon the listener's private space for reflection and slashes the artistic gestalt with a blunt blade. Following its abrupt relocation, I'd hate to see Oakland Opera Theater become known as the company on the wrong side of the tracks. With more attention paid to artistic coherence, I trust that can be avoided.