The flurry of Britten recordings continues with this well-prepared and exciting version of what's probably the tautest, most compact of all his scores for the stage. It was the first of the operas to be recorded complete following the highly successful premiere of the work in Venice in 1954, and the original cast was employed. That will obviously remain an essential document. Britten never got round to re-recording it in stereo with the second generation of interpreters: perhaps he thought he couldn't improve on the original cast, so we have been deprived of, among others, Heather Harper's and Jill Gomez's memorable readings of the Governess's role. There has never been a stereo recording, if we except the Philips soundtrack (1/84—nla) of a dubbed film of the work (with Helen Donath, Harper and Robert Tear singing but not acting, the Governess, Mrs Grose and Quint) and this one neatly fills the bill.
The new version comes with a fascinating essay by Donald Mitchell, a close musical analysis by him and Philip Reed and letters from the composer relating to the work. Astonishingly these reveal that, as a youth in 1932, Britten heard a dramatized version of James's story on the wireless and described it as ''eerie and scary'', adjectives that apply even more strongly to his own setting of 22 years later. At the time of composition he wrote frequently to his chosen librettist, Myfanwy Piper: these letters reveal once again his meticulous care for word setting.
After the premiere Britten agreed with Desmond Shawe-Taylor's assessment that the subject was the nearest to the composer that he had yet chosen, adding revealingly ''although what that indicates of my own character I shouldn't like to say''. Undoubtedly it adumbrates what Tippett might have called the 'dark side' of Britten of which he was himself acutely conscious. A description of the conflicting views of The Turn of the Screw is to be found in CUP's handbook on the work by Patricia Howard. Mitchell here gives as his opinion that the music discloses the Governess and Quint as two sides of the same character (rather like the Donington view of Wotan and Alberich): ''The Governess/Quint symbiosis (and its musical realisation) has its roots precisely in the pursuit of power, power to possess Miles...''.
Consciously or not, that struggle, once you are aware of it, is very much present in the forceful, histrionic portrayal of the roles here by Felicity Lott and Philip Langridge (who sings only the Prologue on the film soundtrack), coming to a climax in the final confrontation where the tension is almost unbearable in such a lifelike, big-scale recording. Both bring all their long stage experience to bear on giving character and verbal enlightenment to their roles; both surpass even their other recent Britten performances on disc, as respectively Ellen Orford (Haitink/EMI, 7/93) and Essex (Mackerras/Argo, 7/93); both are in excellent voice.
They are at the centre of this performance's success, they and Steuart Bedford (who paces the work to within a minute of Britten's own timing). He and his players have the advantage over the composer and his hand-picked ensemble in the ability of modern recording to open up the score and also subject it to the minutest scrutiny so that one is amazed again not only at the intricate skill with which it is woven but also by its extraordinary aptness in fitting individual instruments to evoke a mood, a situation, a place. But it has a possible drawback: the old mono recording has an intimacy, a claustrophobic feeling appropriate to the work that the sometimes reverberant acoustic here is bound to dissipate. Then I was not always happy about where the voices were placed. At his first appearance, Quint is certainly supposed to be distant, but not so much so as to be almost inaudible and, in her letter-writing scene, the Governess seems further away than is natural. But these are small drawbacks to what is by and large a vivid representation of the piece.
With a single, important exception the supporting singers offer arresting interpretations. Phyllis Cannan, that grievously underused soprano (what a superb Elizabeth I in Gloriana she would make), is a vital, rounded Mrs Grose, surpassing even Joan Cross (Decca) in vocal assurance and attention to detail, always following to the letter Britten's injunctions. Nadine Secunde brings another kind of soprano timbre, more incisive and high-flying, to Miss Jessel—just right—and she's rather moving in her eventual defeat. Eileen Hulse makes a lively and cleverly naughty Flora. What a pity then that the Miles is disappointing. You may think that Sam Pay's totally innocent-sounding, pure choirboy sound makes the whole story just that much more horrifying, but I find David Hemmings's trail-blazing performance (Decca), knowing and devilish, closer to the story's and opera's intentions.
Those of us who have lived with and loved the original version over 40 years are not going to let our affection for it dim, but the new set is happily in the true tradition of the piece, and deserves a high placing among all the other recent performances of Britten's operas. The work itself will surely capture the imagination of any newcomer who hasn't yet been made aware of its greatness.'