Opera Warhorses

Is there anyone out there in the world of opera who doesn’t adore Puccini’s super-popular “La Boheme”? Who doesn’t dab at tears at the end when Mimi dies in Rodolfo’s arms? This is opera verisma (opera in the Real World) at its absolute best! And how do you top Act II’s rollicking Cafe’ Momus Christmas Eve scene for sheer delight.

[Below: A Paris Christmas eve; the second act sets for "La Boheme", edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

San Diego Opera opened its 2010 International Season with this sublime masterpiece – but the 2010 Season itself is a masterpiece of opera selections featuring Verdi’s majestic, epochal “Nabucco”, the lushly passionate love-in of Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet”, and ending with Verdi’s sensational “La Traviata”.

Tying together this Season (dubbed The Season of Desire), the heroines in three of these operas share their destiny in common. In each, the heroine expires at the end in dramatically overwhelming dramatic pathos in the arms of her lover. This Season ends with “La Traviata” as our heroine collapses after singing with her lover in perhaps the most riveting final duet in all Italian opera as the curtain falls on this wondrous opera – and the 2010 San Diego Season. Lots to look forward to indeed – particularly in a season short one opera due to the tough economy out there in the Real World – but not short on quality!

Thirty-five years ago the San Diego Opera launched itself as an opera company with “La Boheme”, repeating it in 1968, then in 1975 bringing this glorious crowd-pleaser back every five years since then. Many luminaries in the opera world have graced San Diego Opera’s stage in these productions – certainly in 1980 with the late, great Luciano Pavarotti as Rodolfo (a performance I saw!).

[Below: the Bohemian's garrett, seen in Act I and IV of the San Diego Opera John Conklin production of "La Boheme"; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The wonderful scene/sets/ambience/atmosphere of this production is the work of San Diego Opera veteran (with some 12 productions since 1980) John Conklin. He is no newcomer in designing stage smash-hits not just here but in San Francisco, Santa Fe, the Met, Washington National Opera, English National Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, et al, etc. This is a very traditional, very comfortable overview of this cherished-by-all piece.

[Below: the Bohemians in conversation, with Schaunard (Malcolm MacKenzie) standing and, seated from left, Rodolfo (Piotr Beczala), Marcello (Jeff Matsey) and Colline (Alfred Walker), edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Without any doubt, Polish tenor Piotr Beczala was the MVP in this brilliant, sparkling production as Rodolfo - not acting the role, but living it – creamy, silken smooth, utterly effortless, tear-jerking singing sending chills up my spine and the audience to their feet at final curtain call. All of us who have grown up in the joy of the greatest (and expensive) show on Earth – opera – were very much aware of seeing a rising super-star!!

Living (again not playing) the all-important role of Mimi was Ellie Dehn – like Beczala making her house debut here – who arrives on the scene as Act 1 reaches its climax knocking at the door, losing her key. Dehn came off as one of the most demure, feminine, shy, arresting Mimis that I’ve seen (not telling the world how great she is) presenting rich, resonant, soaring notes very much up to the splendor of Piotr Beczala.

Ellie Dehn replaced the orginally scheduled Anja Harteros, came with experience as Musetta at the Met and Freia in the Los Angeles Opera production of Wagner’s “Das Rheingold”, and will be the Countess in the forthcoming San Francisco Opera production of Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro”.

[Below: Rodolfo (Piotr Beczala) warms the hands of Mimi (Ellie Dehn); edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

Most particularly lush, colorful and terrific was the Act II Cafe’ Momus scene for sheer operatic joy. The Act opened with the stage crammed – jugglers, musicians, kids, cops, all the town out in Paris on Christmas Eve with huge, spectacular posters of the fabled Moulin Rouge show-posters by French artist extraordinaire Toulouse Lautrec forming the background (San Diego Museum of Art features a giant retrospective of his work later this year).

The Musetta - fabulously presented by Priti Gandhi who lives part-time next door in Del Mar – stole this act. Dressed in a stunning, bright-yellow show-stopper gitup, she dominated the act all the way to the end when the French tricolor is marched out to the cheering mob scene when it ends with Musetta’s portly, antique, top-hat sporting sugar-daddy, Alcindoro (Scott Sikon), being stuck with the bill for the bohemian frolic to the roaring delight of the audience. Bluntly,  I know of no Act in all Italian opera more festively joyous than this!!

[Below: Musetta (Priti Gandhi) is carried on the shoulders of  Colline (Alfred Walker, left) and Schaunard (Malcolm MacKenzie) as Marcello (Jeff Mattsey) follows; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

The evening’s Marcello was Jeff Mattsey, whose San Diego Opera debut had been in 1995 in the other Bohemian baritone role of Schaunard. Filling out this cast in the delicious, fun roles, are Matthew MacKenzie (Zurga in San Diego Opera’s 2008 production of Bizet’s “Pearl Fishers” and Sharpless in Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” in 2009, both performances reviewed on this website) as Schaunard, and  Alfred Walker as Colline. Walker debuted here in 2006 in the marvellous production of Handel’s “Julius Caesar” (I go for Baroque .   .   . ), who was Porgy in L. A. ’s wonderful production of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”.

Our Musetta, Priti Gandhi, has appeared here in Mozart’s “Magic Flute”, Verdi’s “Otello” and “Aida”, and most recently, in last season’s gritty (and fabulous) showing of Britten’s “Peter Grimes”. She was also seen recently in the Los Angeles Opera production of Weill’s “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” (now available on a terrific L. A. Opera DVD).

Besides singing the role of Alcindoro in Act II, Scott Sikon earlier played the soon-to-be-drunk landlord Benoit. Sikon debuted here in Britten’s “Albert Herring” in 1991, having graced San Diego Opera’s stage in 20+ roles, as well as the stages at Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, et al.

[Below: Alcindoro (Scott Sikon, left) is annoyed that his mistress, Musetta (Priti Gandhi) is carrying on a raucous conversation with her former lover Marcello (Jeff Mattsey) at the next table; edited image, based on a photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

E. Loren Meeker made her San Diego Opera stage director debut. But she is hardly a rookie here, having been Assistant Director at San Diego Opera between 2005 and 2007, and  with similar staffing assignments at Chicago Lyric Opera and Houston Grand Opera.

Presiding over the orchestra with distinction was Conductor Karen Keltner, whose spirited performance  won tumultuous applause at opera’s end.

We’ve all seen many reviews of “La Boheme”, but one of the most famous – and my favorite – is that by Puccini’s long-time publisher G Ricordi – collaborator, critic, helper, etc who worked with Puccini in the three years of “La Boheme’s” gestation as well as Puccini’s prior operas, writing, “Dear Puccini, if this time you have not succeeded in hitting the nail squarely on the head, I will change my profession and sell salami.”  No, he  didn’t change professions .   .     .  !!

[Below: the lovers Mimi (Ellie Dehn) and Rodolfo (Piotr Beczala), reconciled at the end of Act III, leave together; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.]

This Trio – Beczala, Dehn and Gandhi – were nothing short of fabulous. What a Season starter!!

Just a final factoid of interest to California opera-lovers:La Boheme’s first American debut (April 1897) was in (envelope please .  .   . ) - Los Angeles! I confirmed this with Puccini’s granddaughter in Santa Barbara last year at a Santa Barbara Opera gala in her honor!! (See: Puccini’s 150th Birthday Party Takes Place as Santa Barbara Firestorm Rages – November 15, 2008.)

For William’s reviews of Piotr Beczala’s Tamino and Rodolfo at San Francisco Opera, see: The Magic Scarfe: “Zauberfloete” in San Francisco – October 13, 2007 and The Luisotti “Boheme” in San Francisco – November 22, 2008.

Houston Grand Opera opened the new decade with a new production of “Tosca”, with a distinguished title role debut by Patricia Racette, supported by role debuts of Russian tenor Alexey Dolgov as her lover Mario Cavaradossi and Ohio basso Raymond Aceto as her tormentor, the Baron Scarpia.  The opera was staged by John Caird, the Canadian theater director, writer, and (for Andre Previn’s “Brief Encounter”) opera librettist. I attended the second of five Houston performances.

The “Tosca” production was clearly one championed by its conductor Patrick Summers.  It was another triumph for the successful team of Conductor Summers and soprano Patricia Racette, who appeared together for Santa Fe Opera’s summer season in Morevac’s “The Letter” (See 21st Century Maugham: Morevac, Racette Reopen “The Letter” in Santa Fe – July 29, 2009) and were colleagues again in September for all three operas of Puccini’s Trittico.

(For the first of the triple bill of operas, see: Gavanelli, Racette, Jovanovich In Rousing “Tabarro” at San Francisco Opera – September 15, 2009, for the second see: Racette, Podles in San Francisco Opera’s Musically Compelling “Suor Angelica” – September 15, 2009, and for the third, see: Gavanelli’s Commanding Presence as San Francisco Opera’s Gianni Schicchi – September 15, 2009).

Racette has an extraordinarily varied repertory of roles, but has lately spent much time with the Puccini heroines, for which her spinto voice and stellar acting talents make her a natural. Some of her achievements with the Tuscan maestro’s music have been chronicled here (three separate reviews of her Butterfly can be accessed through hyperlinks at Racette, Ventre Impress in Zambello-Inspired “Butterfly” at San Diego Opera- May 20, 2009 and a review of her Magda is at Marta Domingo’s Reconceptualization of “Rondine” Returns to L. A. – June 7, 2008).

Now that her Tosca has been added to her Puccini collection of characters (Musetta in “La Boheme” is also in her current repertory), and she has prepared Manon Lescaut (although the opera company where she was to make her role debut had to withdraw the opera when the economy forced a reduced season), the most obviously missing of the high energy Puccini characters written for the soprano voice – Minnie in “Fanciulla del West” –  has to be under consideration.

Those who had the fortune to see the great soprano Dorothy Kirsten performing Puccini will know it is a compliment to suggest that Racette is perhaps the contemporary artist most obviously carrying on the Puccini legacy that Kirsten and her mentor, Grace Moore, exemplified in the early- and mid- 20th century.

[Below: Patricia Racette is Tosca; edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

The new production abounds with eccentricities, even though it successfully presented Puccini’s story. With Bunny Chirstie’s sets and costumes (including Tosca in a second act gown with bustle), it proved to be a striking theatrical experience.

The most obvious departure from Puccini’s stage directions is the use of what I call a “puzzle box” unit set – one that attempts to use a single unit set for several different scenes, even though the composer expected that each scene would have its own unique sets. Sometimes this works well enough (Charismatic S. F. “Tannhauser” – October 12, 2007.) Sometimes its results invite ridicule (See Vargas, Podles Brilliant in Puzzle Box “Ballo”: Houston – November 2, 2007 and Hampson Transcends Quirky “Macbeth” in S. F. – November 18, 2007.)

That unit set is obscured at the beginning of each act by one of three forecurtains, successively stained by blood pools and spatter of increasing amounts each act. At the beginning of each act the character who sings that act’s first line runs onstage in front of the forecurtain and in the audience’s view, pulls it down. (Who the characters are might make an interesting opera trivia question, with the answers being, successively, Angelotti, Scarpia and the young shepherd – or, in another departure by this production from tradition – a mysterious spirit assigned the shepherd’s vocal lines.)

The unit set consists of the same spacious room for each act, one that uses the vertical spaces of the Houston Grand Opera’s Brown Theater stage, with a row of clerestory windows ringing the three visible walls.  Of course, since the three scenes are supposed to be a cathedral, the headquarters of Rome’s chief of police, and a place of execution atop the Castel Sant’Angelo, the set is dressed differently for each act. The room has a very high ceiling with a hole it, whose purpose we will understand in the third act.

The first act has a particularly striking vertical feature – Cavaradossi’s scaffolding. His portrait of Mary Magdalene is both massive and in fragments – the lips at one level and each eye on a different one. Until Angelotti arrives, the painting is covered at each level.

Some productions of Tosca have been criticized for de-emphasizing or eliminating such religious features as Tosca’s ritual of arranging candles and a crucifix around Scarpia’s body to close the second act. But Caird moves in the other direction, adding some religious elements, including religious mysticism, beyond those Puccini expected.

Summers arrival in the pit conjured the famous chords of Scarpia’s theme, while Robert Gleadow’s Angelotti ran in front of the footlights to tear down the first act forecurtain, to remove the cloths covering Cavaradossi’s painting (of his sister) and to find his pre-arranged hiding place in the Attavanti chapel.

In the first aria of the piece, Alexei Dolgov sang Recondita armonia with a beautifully toned lyric tenor voice, with enough vocal weight to impress as Cavaradossi, but the flexibility and expressiveness that makes one look forward to hearing Dolgov’s Donizetti heroes. Dolgov’s Cavaradossi becomes aware of Angelotti’s presence and makes the fatal decision (ultimately resulting in an assassination, an execution and two suicides) to help him.

[Below: Mario Cavaradossi (Alexey Dolgov, left) assists the fugitive Angelotti (Robert Gleadow); edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

Racette exhibited some obvious vocal discomfort following her entrance (no longer noticeable as the act progressed), but charmingly portrayed a youthful, coquettish lover, as well as an art critic (Cavaradossi’s paper sketch for the larger portrait of Marie Magdalene is soon ripped into shreds).

Then Aceto’s Scarpia arrives in a long black coat and white shirt, surrounded by his operatives (Shon Sims earning his induction into the fraternity of sinister Spolettas). In an arresting image, Scarpia ascends to the highest level of Cavaradossi’s scaffolding where he shares his lustful thoughts with the audience while the church processional sings the Te Deum.

[Below: Baron Scarpia (Raymond Aceto, at the top landing of scaffolding at left) sings the Te Deum as the church processional begins in the first act of Tosca in Houston Grand Opera's John Caird-Bunny Christie unit set for "Tosca"; edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

Aceto, whom this website regards as one of the best of the current generation of basso cantantes has, with the encouragement of Conductor Patrick Summers, taken on a role that lies higher than what a basso would be expected to sing. Although not without precedent (I saw Giorgio Tozzi perform the role to the Tosca of Magda Olivero in 1978), Scarpia’s high tessitura is unusual terrain for a bass voice.

Aceto is an effective actor and he connected well with the Houston audience. But, as I noted in a review of his Escamillo (see: Impressive Debuts in L. A. Opera “Carmen” – December 6, 2008), I believe performances in basso roles will be his destiny, rather than his excursions into the baritone repertory. (My recent interview with Raymond Aceto will be published on the website later this month.).

Skipping the step of confessing contrition for his sins, Aceto’s Scarpia then takes communion at the hands of an archbishop, then dons his black hat and leaves.

[Below: Baron Scarpia (Raymond Aceto) takes communion; edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.]

Aceto’s Scarpia, returning to the footlights for Act II, pulls down another forecurtain to reveal his offices, which, according to Caird’s notes, are supposed to reflect Scarpia’s interest in collecting (stealing) Roman artwork. Crates are everywhere, giving one the impression that we are in a warehouse room adjoining the loading dock of a Wal-Mart-supermarket complex. One of the large statues reminds one of the Castel Sant’Angelo’s Avenging Angel, which, as we will find, is nowhere to be seen in this production’s Act III.

No one plays Scarpia as a nice guy, but Aceto’s police chief was a bit more of a thug than the debonair aristocrat one often sees. When Spoletta arrives with news of his pursuit of Angelotti to Cavaradossi’s villa, Scarpia offers him wine, but when he reveals that Angelotti could not be found, Scarpia knocks the wine out of his hand and cold-cocks him.

Scarpia’s torture chamber, unlike other productions, is not hidden in an adjoining room, but is set up right in the middle of his offices, where the movements of both the torturers and tortured are visible through its slatted walls. The tortured Cavaradossi, returned to the main office to be a pawn in Scarpia’s mind-game with Tosca, overhears Sciarrone’s disconcerting news that previous reports that the Austrian General Melas had defeated Napoleon at Marengo were premature, and that the defeated Austrians were conceding much of Northern Italy to the French.

Cavaradossi’s “Vittoria, vittoria” is, in the Rome of the restored monarchy, treasonous, and gives Scarpia the justification to execute him immediately.

[Below: the prisoner Cavaradossi (Alexey Dolgov) celebrates Napoleon's victory in Lombardy; edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

Clearly, the opportunity – even the obligation for a Roman chief of police in a counter-revolutionary state – to immediately conduct Cavaradossi’s summary execution, provides Scarpia with a strategic advantage in his seduction of Tosca. There is a another element of the Aceto Scarpia. All of of Scarpia’s phrases are sung lyrically. When he sings that he has waited for Tosca always, it is sung as passionately and as beautifully as any Italian love song.

Lyricism is a feature that permeates this “Tosca”. In the moment that an incensed Tosca realizes that she is being propositioned by Scarpia, most Toscas snarl “Quanto?”, as Maria Callas did, but Racette sings it at the pitch (C above middle C) that Puccini designated. Of course, what follows is one of the greatest of the Puccini soprano arias, Vissi d’arte, and Racette sang it spectacularly.

[Below: Floria Tosca (Patricia Racette) pleads for Baron Scarpia (Raymond Aceto) to save her lover's life; edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera. ]

Many “Tosca” watchers look to see at which point soprano and stage director determine that Tosca realizes that Scarpia’s dinner knife is within her reach. Racette and Caird make it a last minute, impulsive act, as she is refilling a glass of wine to calm her nerves. If Racette is showing her to be impulsive, she is also thorough, stabbing Aceto’s Scarpia in the neck as well as in the torso. Nor do Caird and Racette ignore the religious images at the end. Scarpia dies with arms outstretched in a cross. She takes a crucifix from around her neck and places it on his body, and collects some offertory candles to place alongside his body.

As the room darkens, one of the statues high atop the crates and boxes begins to glow. It is a representation of the Virgin who appears to beckon her through the doors that lead from the scene of the police chief’s assassination.

The third act begins with the ritual of pulling down the forecurtain, this time by Eliza Masewicz as the “Young Girl”, who in this production replaces the shepherd. She goes to the far wall of the unit set, where a large square opening is visible. The hole in the set’s ceiling is the aperture through which a half dozen hangmen’s nooses have been dropped, one of which stretches all the way to the set’s floor.

Since shepherds would not normally wander around a prison courtyard, which this set will soon appear to represent, one soon realizes that this is no shepherd. (Masewicz, who is indeed a young girl with a bright voice, was Peaseblossom in Houston Grand Opera’s 2009 production of Britten’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.)

Cavaradossi is led onstage, and then also a group of a half dozen companion prisoners, many of whom he knows and greets with affection. We see that they have been assembled to watch the hanging of Angelotti’s body (that Scarpia ordered in Act II), and it is pulled upward all the way to the ceiling, where it swings back and forth (a bit distractingly). That ceremony completed, all of the other prisoners are led away.

Dolgov’s Cavaradossi sings E lucevan le stelle, one of the tenor anthems. Dolgov’s expressiveness and soft, luscious sound made it clear that here is yet another great operatic talent. When Tosca arrives and explains how the “mock execution” is to work, Dolgov straightens out his fingers, clearly signalling the audience of his skepticism. The firing squad having left, Tosca discovers the grim truth.

[Below: Tosca (Patricia Racette) weeps over the body of Mario Cavaradossi (Alexey Dolgov); edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

Scarpia’s death discovered, as Spoletta and company attempt to corner Tosca, the Young Girl reappears in the large square opening in the back wall, and beckons Tosca to join her. Tosca kills herself with a blood-spurting knife wound to the neck and the orchestra, intoning a principal theme of E lucevan le stelle, signals Tosca’s reunification with her lover Mario.

“Tosca” is great theater, and the Caird staging was insightful and illuminating, even though one suspects that much of his innovative thinking about how to present the piece will be confined to this production. The singing of Racette and Dolgov was superb, and the cantante Scarpia another of Aceto’s impressive gallery of characterizations.

All performances of the Houston Grand Opera “Tosca” are completely sold out, and deservedly so.

It’s been 112 years since Henry James’ serialized ghost story absorbed the interest of the readers of Colliers magazine. To its author’s surprise, it created a storm of controversy that has continued throughout the decades that followed the American author’s death. What evil lurks in the Bly mansion in Essex that appears to possess the minds and souls of two children, and causes the children’s Governess to enter combat with the apparitions of two deceased members of the mansion’s household?

In 1934, an especially provocative critique of James’ novella created a new flare-up in the “What’s ‘Turn of the Screw’ all about?” debate. Literary critic Edmund Wilson, near the beginning of his famous career, attempted to employ the then fashionable principles of Freudian psychology to the ghost story. Wilson suggested that the ghosts of the valet Peter Quint and the children’s former governess, Miss Jessel, were not real, but merely imaginative figments growing out of the new Governess’ sexual repression.

In the decade and a half following Wilson’s literary bombshell a counter-movement defending the reality of the ghosts’ presence emerged, clearly impressing art critic Myfanwy Piper. A friend of Benjamin Britten and his life partner, tenor Peter Pears, she suggested to Britten that she write the libretto and he the music for an opera based on the novella.  In their opera, the ghosts would not only appear to the Governess, but would be singing characters in the opera. Pears, who would create the part of Peter Quint (and also that of the Narrator in the prologue), encouraged the idea.

The concept of the opera evolved over several years. In the early 1950s in Britain, economic conditions created impediments to elaborate opera productions, and the decision was made to score the opera for a micro-sized orchestra and a cast of four adults and two children. This had the effect of making the opera accessible to many more small venues of the kind that would not be able to produce a large cast Britten work such as “Peter Grimes” or “Billy Budd”.  Paradoxically, however, it seemed to prohibit the opera’s accessibility to “main stage theaters” of the large international opera houses. Who among them produces operas that have orchestras with only 14 members?

Houston Grand Opera, as part of a series of Britten works, decided to include a successful production conceived by Neil Armfield for the Opera Australia. The production, holding its own in the the Wortham Center’s spacious Alice and George Brown Theater, did not seem overwhelmed by its surroundings, either visually or sonically.

[Below: Flora (Joelle Harvey) and Miles (Michael Kepler Meo), seated, are watched by the Governess (Amanda Roocroft) and Mrs Grose (Judith Forst); edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

The vibrancy of the small orchestra’s sound was remarkable. (The Houston Grand Opera routinely states that no amplification is ever used, except in the case of stage musicals with spoken dialogue, and the lack of amplification is testimony to the brilliant acoustics of the Brown Theater).

Britten’s instrumentation includes piano, celeste, harp and the otherworldly timbre of the cor anglais, permitting a rich sonic tapestry for both the human and ghostly worlds.

British tenor Andrew Kennedy proved an incisive Narrator in the opera’s prologue, emphasizing the psychological mischief that can result when children are raised without emotional support from those who are supposed to be their guardians.

Soon the prologue gives way to the story itself, presented as a series of scenes in two acts of just over 50 minutes each. Each scene is separated by an orchestral interlude. In these interludes, which comprise variations on the opera’s fundamental musical themes (representing good vs evil?), are some of the opera’s most striking musical passages.

The Governess (authoritatively sung by British soprano Amanda Roocroft in her Houston Grand Opera debut), in a large, dark red hoop skirt, muses on the mysterious instructions that accompanied her employment as she travels to her new home in Bly. Soon stagehands (dressed as 19th century tradesmen) move pieces of scenery in place to create the mansion’s elegant courtyard. The children prove to be charming and impeccably well-mannered.

But soon, the mood becomes darker. Roocroft’s Governess is stunned by the letter from Miles’ school expelling him as a threat to the other boys without further explanation, and soon is frightened by the appearance of Peter Quint (also sung by Kennedy), whom the household’s caretaker Mrs Grose (sung by Judith Forst) identifies by the Governess’ description as the household’s dead valet.

The Governess is not yet ready to believe ill of Miles (who is played in an astonishingly complete realization by boy soprano Michael Kepler Meo), but Britten and  lighting designer Nigel Levings make us aware of the aura of evil that surrounds him. During his Latin lesson as he sings of the meaning of the verb “malo (I choose)”, Miles’ shadow spookily lengthens to engulf the mansion’s fireplace wall. Meo demonstrated great performance skills as his hand movements seemed actually to be playing a piano piece of almost concerto-like complexity.

(Consistent with the controversies in meaning regarding virtually every part of James’ novella and of Britten’s opera, scholarly debates have recently erupted on how to translate the list of Latin verbs sung by Miles, taken from an older schoolhouse textbook, or the curious quasi-Anglican song sung by Flora and Miles on the way to church.  Oxford don Valentine Cunningham asserted that some of the words were slang for body parts and were sexual double entendres and thus were coded gay messages from Britten to “friends in the know”. The words that Cunningham assumed were coded messages are mostly the “Anglo-Saxon swear words” used by ”naughty boys”, a term Miles uses to describe himself.

The convincing refutation of Cunningham’s thesis by Christopher Stray, who took issue with the “dirty meanings” that the Don attributed to certain irregular Latin verbs, did not even have to state the obvious – even if you concede that Professor Cunningham’s imputed translations were correct, all of these slang words would have been known and probably used by most of Britain’s and America’s population of young boys, both at the time of the opera’s premiere and the current day, and known and used by a high percentage of young girls as well. Perhaps some Oxford dons are not as streetwise as the average Anglophone kid.)

Joelle Harvey, as Miles’ little sister Flora, was taller and looked older than her part suggested (imagine trying to guess what size a child singer will be at performance time, when you have to establish your casts months and even years ahead of time). But she sang beautifully and exuded the persona of  a young, spellbound girl.

[Below: Flora (Joelle Harvey) appears to be in communication with the world of spirits, to the dismay of the Governess (Amanda Roocroft, behind right); edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

Soon another ghost become visible – that of the Governess’ predecessor, Miss Jessel (chillingly sung by Tamara Wilson), who appears to have a control over Flora, as does Quint over Miles. It is the Governess’ reaction to her appearance that begins the chain of events that leads to the denouement of the opera and the death of Miles. She writes a short note to the children’s guardian, asking for an appointment to see him.

[Below: the ghost of Miss Jessel (Tamara Wilson) sits at the school room desk used by the Governess (Amanda Roocroft, right); edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

Once the opera turns to the interactions between humans, young and old, and the two apparitions, Britten’s strange sonic world of the ghosts and director Armfield’s imaginative staging enhances the experience.

Perhaps the production’s most striking scene is when Miles, in his bed, having been caressed and comforted by the Governess, is queried by Quint on what the Governess wrote in her letter. The spellbound Miles steals the Governess’ letter on Quint’s behalf.

[Below: the boy Miles (Michael Kepler Meo) responds to the presence of the ghost of Peter Quint (Andrew Kennedy); edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

After Mrs Grose leaves Bly with Flora in an effort to “save” her, Roocroft’s Governess and Kennedy’s Quint seem to do battle over the soul of Miles, who utters Henry James’ mysterious words “Peter Quint, You Devil” and dies in the Governess’ arms.

[Below: Miles (Michael Kepler Meo) is held by the Governess (Amanda Roocroft), who is determined to save him from  Peter Quint (Andrew Kennedy, right); edited image, based on a Felix Sanchez photograph, courtesy of the Houston Grand Opera.]

What’s “Turn of the Screw”, be it the novella or the opera, all about? I believe that its meanings remain recondite, 112 years after the novella’s publication and 56 years after the opera’s premiere. As I’ve written elsewhere, if you are sure you know what it’s about – whatever you may think – articulate, intelligent students of the work can be found that will explain why you are wrong.

Does a work whose meaning will always remain a riddle deserve a place in the operatic repertory? I think it does. Every time one sees it, there is a chance to see it from a different perspective – another turn of the screw.

The ambiguity of the story and the ghostly presences seem to meet the 21st century mood.  Over a half century after its premiere, we can begin to concede that we never will know what it’s about. Its meaning is in the eye of the beholder. We are an audience, and many of us will connect with it, but all of us in a different way.

For six and half decades several of the Britten operas have evolved to become the pre-eminent representations of mid-20th century opera. Britten operas are kind to the human voice and, melody never having been banished from Britten’s work, attractive to the sophisticated ear.

“Turn of the Screw” is an opera whose music is immediately accessible and survives repeated hearings. It certainly provides an opportunity for imaginative staging. Armfield’s conceptualization in Houston is praiseworthy and worth traveling to see.

The opera also contains three of the most vivid operatic characters that Britten ever devised – the Governess, Peter Quint and Miles.  In Houston, Roocroft, Kennedy and Meo performed these roles brilliantly, and were well supported by Forst’s Mrs Grose, Harvey’s Flora, and Wilson’s Miss Jessel.

Even now, opera companies around the world are deciding how to observe the centennial of Britten’s birth in 2013, while trying to keep production costs at a minimum in this era of once more rampant financial distress.

There will always be logistical problems in casting the two children, but this challenge may be offset by the requirement of a much smaller orchestra and a manageable cast of just four adults. The production’s success in Houston will prove very interesting information to the large theater opera companies.