Britten - The Turn of the Screw, at La Monnaie

La Monnaie, Brussels, Sunday May 5 2024

Conductor: Antonio Méndez. Production: Andrea Breth. Sets: Raimund Orfeo Voigt. Costumes: Carla Teti. Lighting: Alexander Koppelmann. The Prologue: Ed Lyon. Governess: Sally Matthews. Miles: Samuel Brasseur Kulk, Noah Vanmeerhaeghe. Flora: Katharina Bierweiler. Mrs Grose: Carole Wilson. Peter Quint: Julian Hubbard. Miss Jessel: Allison Cook. La Monnaie Chamber Orchestra.

Photos: Bernd Uhlig

I was saying just this morning that we don't get enough Britten in Paris and have to go elsewhere to find him. Brussels has done a better job over the years, and once again, for this Turn of the Screw, has fielded a strong production with a strong cast.

Andrea Breth's staging seems strongly influenced by Belgian surrealism. It's dark, sometimes very dark, lit only by eight candles, and oppressive. Grey, panelled walls close in on the characters, objects such as chairs or even wall lights slither silently into place, characters crawl in and out of collapsed grand pianos... As well as Quint and the Prologue singer, mysterious men in grey suits, overcoats and trilbies sit reading newspapers, or creep slowly and stiffly across the stage: more ghosts than you could shake a stick at. The women are strait-laced and stiff-backed in slender, Victorian black. The children (including two Mileses) are suspended on hangers in a wardrobe, a cellist plays in a closet, the governess is picked out by a sharp, white spotlight as she sings high up, near the ceiling, and is spun head over heels as she makes an exit... It's all very creepy and strange and relentlessly grim - and impeccably managed, to the last detail.

The questions, to me, are only whether the surrealism perhaps makes the characters less real, setting a degree of distance between us and them and reducing their impact; and whether, seeing no sign of Bly's beautiful grounds or the bright Sunday morning, but only the grim grey interiors and weird goings-on, we possibly lose a useful dramatic contrast between apparent good and actual evil. Here, for example, the children are evidently ghastly from the start: Flora pours milk into the new governess's handbag; Miles pokes a vicious-looking kitchen knife into her back. Shades of Ivy Compton-Burnett, only in her books the knife blade is replaced by cutting dialogue.

With the singers, we got off to a good start - even on a Sunday afternoon after lunch - with Ed Lyon at his best. Julian Hubbard, who sings a lot in Brussels, including, even, Parsifal, or most recently, Froh, in Castellucci's Das Rheingold, was a subtle, insinuating Quint, with plenty of oomph when required. The trio of women were very strong, even forceful, and (apart from Carole Wilson's edgy top) plummy. I might have liked a bit more contrast between their voices, especially as, unless I'm mistaken, the director, highlighting the ambiguities in the plot, had Miss Jessel - on stage earlier than expected - singing some of the governess's lines (and Quint singing some of the Prologue's). I even, for once, found myself wondering if the voices weren't actually a bit too big for a chamber opera: never satisfied... Still, Sally Matthews put in a powerful, chilling performance. I shivered at the end.

To my surprise, knowing the heights Alain Altinoglu has taken La Monnaie's orchestra to these days, the chamber orchestra sounded a touch thin and scrappy and, under Antonio Méndez, flat - not in terms of intonation, but of relief and interest, a shame with Britten's inventive, ingenious score.

But as usual (my mother was just the same, so blame genetics), instead of revelling in the positive, I'm picking at the negative. This was the best production of Screw I remember seeing (and should make a handsome video; I believe it did go out on TV, without an audience, during the Covid lockdown). Not, to end incorrigibly on another, final, negative note, that I've seen enough.