The Premiere of Benjamin Britten's Opera The Turn of the Screw on the Stage of the Hermitage Theater

On 29 November, 2001, the Hermitage Theater hosted the premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera The Turn of the Screw. To produce this opera was a joint project of the British Council in collaboration with the State Hermitage Museum and the Hermitage Music Academy Foundation. The project, intended to popularize masterpieces of European music of the 20th century, was supported by the London Royal Academy of Music and the Britten-Pears Memorial Foundation. The idea of this production occurred to Sergey Evtushenko, Director of the State Hermitage Museum's St. Petersburg Camerata Orchestra, and the British conductor Damian Iorio. It is remarkable that the opera is sung in English by English soloists.

The Turn of the Screw was Britten's eighth opera. It is based on a novella of the same title by the renowned classic of American literature Henry James (1813-1916) written in 1898. Britten saw in James' story his one theme, that of childhood, drama of growing up, the clash of innocence and experience. For Britten, the theme of childhood is sacred. No surprise, therefore, that he wrote The Turn of the Screw as a chamber opera, in which external events are subordinate in significance to inner events. "I believe chamber opera more fitting to express intimate feelings," the composer confided.

The premiere of The Turn of the Screw was held in Venice on 14 September, 1954. It was performed by the English Opera Group, a collective with which the composer had links throughout the 1940s and 1950s and to whom he dedicated the opera. The libretto was written by Myfanwy Piper, the scenery was designed by the renowned artist John Piper. The historical premiere featured such outstanding singers and actors as Peter Pears, Jennifer Vyvyan, Joan Cross, Arda Mandikian, Olive Dyer and David Hemmings, Britten conducting.

This opera company brought The Turn of the Screw to Moscow and Leningrad in the autumn of 1964. In 1984 the opera produced by Sviatoslav Richter and Boris Pokrovsky was performed as part of the December Evenings in Moscow and then toured to Leningrad in 1985, with a concert performance in the Small Hall of the Philharmonia. Finally, in 1990 The Turn of the Screw was performed on the stage of the Kirov Theater by the English National Opera (produced by Jonathan Miller and David Ritch).

Conductor Damian Iorio

Scene from the opera

Scene from the opera

Playbill