With its dark, evocative score, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw is one of the most unnerving of all operas. Told in flashback from a psychiatric ward, a young governess is terrorised by unseen forces in a remote country house. The setting is Bronte-esque, but the menace is pure Hitchcock.
The story of The Turn of the Screw
A young, inexperienced governess is invited to a bleak country house, home to two orphaned children, both deeply troubled, possibly possessed. Her anxiety mounts. There are strangled cries in the night, a figure on the tower, a face at the window. But are they just figments of her imagination, or malign presences threatening the charges in her care? She can’t be sure – and nor can we – as the tension builds towards a nerve-shredding climax.