BaL 16.11.13 - Britten: The Turn of the Screw

[Bryn]

I'm sure Bostridge once said that he was going to stop singing it, because he couldn't really do the melismas! ...

Of the top of me 'ead, "melismata", as in Babbitt.

[amateur51]

I'm sure Bostridge once said that he was going to stop singing it, because he couldn't really do the melismas! (I don't know the plural either. Predictive text wants to put Melissa's.) I saw him live (ENO) and wasn't particularly impressed with his acting.

I enjoyed the programme, but I like all the recordings I've ever heard of this piece, though Britten's own definitely comes top for me. I think I've seen all available DVDs, including one of the ITV (yes!) transmission in the 1950s, with Jennifer Vyvyan in her role of the Governess. (The way Simon Heighes stressed the last syllable of this word annoyed me throughout the programme - goverNESS.) I find them all interesting in different ways, and don't have a particular favourite. Live performance is more to my taste where possible. I saw a superb Miles in the Opera North production a few years ago, James Micklethwaite (?).

That Miles was stunning, I agree Mary.

I have Britten, Harding and Davis and heard no reason to add more but I'll continue to go to 'live' performances. The Glyndebourne/Hrusa DVD is tempting, but I do remember not being so impressed with the BBC television production with Hickox/Padmore.

How extraordinary that there are now so many performances available, each one offering a worthwhile and different musical and psychological of this endlessly fascinating work.

[DracoM]

For me it has to be the Glyndebourne 'Screw' on DVD. Mia Persson as the Governess is superb, and the staging near faultless. A revelation.

[makropulos]

I'm sure Bostridge once said that he was going to stop singing it, because he couldn't really do the melismas! (I don't know the plural either. Predictive text wants to put Melissa's.) I saw him live (ENO) and wasn't particularly impressed with his acting.

I enjoyed the programme, but I like all the recordings I've ever heard of this piece, though Britten's own definitely comes top for me. I think I've seen all available DVDs, including one of the ITV (yes!) transmission in the 1950s, with Jennifer Vyvyan in her role of the Governess. (The way Simon Heighes stressed the last syllable of this word annoyed me throughout the programme - goverNESS.) I find them all interesting in different ways, and don't have a particular favourite. Live performance is more to my taste where possible. I saw a superb Miles in the Opera North production a few years ago, James Micklethwaite.

Mary - I completely agree about BB's own - it is still the one I always reach for first. But can you tell me about the DVD of the ITV television relay? I know all about it, but I've never heard/seen it and didn't even know if it had survived. Is it available somewhere, or is this a case of a trip to the Britten-Pears Library to watch it there?

[ardcarp]

Different things please or annoy different people in different ways. That's what The Forum is all about, I suppose.

For me, today's review by Simon Heighes was magnificent. He seemed to put his finger on what made each performer/performance chime with Britten's (and may be Henry James') intentions. His view that, in some ways, the Britten/Pears/Heming mono recording cannot be dispensed with, was explained....and it was not just for historical reasons. Which brings me to Peter Pears. His voice is almost inseparable from Britten's operatic tenor roles. Love it or hate it, he had incredible control over the emotional content of what he was singing; and to some extent (and sorry if I'm being technical) this was achieved by his use of a 'closed throat' style. Now Bostridge has a voice as different from Pears as it would be hard to imagine....open throat and apparently effortless high control. I had not heard this Harding version before, but I was blown away by Bostridge's Quint...sometime lyrical, sometimes sinister. This was all achieved WITHOUT aping the Peter Pears technique, which is a huge dilemma for any tenor who once heard Pears and who sings Britten's music.

On another thread (Britten on BBC4) one contributor doubted Britten's personally identifying with Aschenbach in Death in Venice. Well, Heighes used a phrase today which IMHO rather sums up one of Britten's motivations (and I'm writing from memory here) 'a fascination with the borderline between innocence and knowing complicity'. A work such as Abraham and Isaac is all innocence on the part of Isaac, but with Miles and with Tadzio it is rather the latter.

Sorry...I've rambled!

[gurnemanz]

Of the top of me 'ead, "melismata", as in Babbitt.

Prof Wilf Mellers referred to the use of "pentatonic melismata" in his packed out series of lectures on the Beatles at York University early 70s. As an ignorant non-music-student, I remember being slightly baffled but deeply impressed by these long words and rushed straight to the dictionary afterwards.

[Mary Chambers]

Mary - I completely agree about BB's own - it is still the one I always reach for first. But can you tell me about the DVD of the ITV television relay? I know all about it, but I've never heard/seen it and didn't even know if it had survived. Is it available somewhere, or is this a case of a trip to the Britten-Pears Library to watch it there?

I bought it at modest cost from Jennifer Vyvyan's son Jonathan Crown, who runs a website devoted to his mother, www.jennifervyvyan.org. He can be contacted there if you want to take it further. The DVD isn't good quality, but it's historically interesting. Britten thought the production visually very good.

[JimD]

- the naturalness of his melismas (melismata?) was stunning.

Online OED: "Plural melismata, melismas."

Anything goes these days.

[makropulos]

I bought it at modest cost from Jennifer Vyvyan's son Jonathan Crown, who runs a website devoted to his mother, www.jennifervyvyan.org. He can be contacted there if you want to take it further. The DVD isn't good quality, but it's historically interesting. Britten thought the production visually very good.

Thank you so much! I've just written to Jonathan Crown in the hope that he'll be able to help (it's a lovely website).

[Nick Armstrong]

i saw/heard Bostridge 'on stage' with Sir Colin Davis at the Barbican theatre (I think - not the concert hall) and his singing of Quint was a revelation - the naturalness of his melismas (melismata? ) was stunning.

... left me cold (not in a good way) - I found it artificial and him unconvincing dramatically...

Ho hum !

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... left me cold (not in a good way) - I found it artificial and him unconvincing dramatically...

Ho hum !

Yeah - I have a real problem (and I acknowledge that it is entirely my own problem, so hurl sympathy not invective my way, please, chaps) with Bostridge's voice: the aural equivalent of a water colour left in direct sunlight for a fortnight - mixed with a few expressive pointings that I find rather hammy. But Pears in this role! How can a voice sound simultaneously so attractive and repulsive (it's the "wrong" word, but no other will do)?

[VodkaDilc]

Of the top of me 'ead, "melismata", as in Babbitt.

This was drummed into me by a notoriously pedantic music lecturer over 40 years ago. His books are still read and his music is still played, so I won't name names - but melismata is certainly correct. (There was no shadow of doubt when Dr M told you something.)

[VodkaDilc]

I thought it was a very thorough and enjoyable BAL - what could go wrong with a great work and one of the best reviewers? The 'one-man' reviews are so much more useful than the wishy-washy discussions, which seemed to be dominating some time ago. Next week's Snape programme threatens lots of this type of discussion - perhaps I should arrange to be elsewhere next Saturday.

Although I know the original CD version well, I was thrown when the first extract was played. My reaction was that it was someone who had followed Pears' style to the letter, but that it could not possibly be a recording from the 1950s. Of course it WAS the Britten recording - such stunning sound for a recording which is nearly 60 years old.

[ardcarp]

This was drummed into me by a notoriously pedantic music lecturer over 40 years ago. His books are still read and his music is still played, so I won't name names - but melismata is certainly correct. (There was no shadow of doubt when Dr M told you something.)

You've really left us guessing there, Vodka.

[Nick Armstrong]

Yeah - I have a real problem (and I acknowledge that it is entirely my own problem, so hurl sympathy not invective my way, please, chaps) with Bostridge's voice: the aural equivalent of a water colour left in direct sunlight for a fortnight - mixed with a few expressive pointings that I find rather hammy.

Oh dear... don't want to turn this into an IB-knocking thread ... but à propos, hearing COTW today reminded me that he is unlistenable-to in Les Illuminations - the French accent is pretty shocking/funny