The Turn Of The Screw

 

This was to have been my entry in the ABC Book Challenge for the letter G – Ghost story. The Turn of the Screw immediately came to mind. The more I thought about it, the more I decided this needed its own stand-alone blog. I picked something else for the letter G.

 

The book was written in 1898 by Henry James. VERY creepy. I don’t know exactly when I saw the 1961 movie The Innocents on TV, but I started watching it. It had been some time since I had read the book, and even though the movie seemed familiar, it took me a while to realize this was really Turn of the Screw in movie form. I already knew the ending, but was too deep into the movie and I watched it until the very bitter end. Still creepy.

 

Several years later I went to a concert at Laxon Auditorium. I don’t remember any of the other pieces of classical music played, but one song grabbed me by the throat. It was a duet from the 1954 opera of Turn of the Screw, composed by Benjamin Britten and libretto by Myfanwy Piper. The duet was sung by the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint. Laxon Auditorium had a center stage and two alcove/balconies on either side. The singers were on either side at the balconies with lighting on them that made them look ghostly. The song was “The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned” which comes from a poem by Yeats. That song haunted me for years!

 

You can find versions of the opera on Youtube, but here is the link for that particular song. The staging was VERY well done.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StkbfUzJGkM