THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Synopsis

The ghosts of Victorian England come out to spook you in Opera Tampa’s new production of The Turn of the Screw, Benjamin Britten’s old-fashioned haunt-a-thon that pits evil spirits against a pair of innocent children. 

Based on the creepy gothic horror novella by Henry James, this chamber opera tells of an orphaned brother and sister in an Essex country house possessed by the apparitions of a former valet and the governess he seduced. A new governess is dispatched to look after the youngsters, but with strict instructions never to write to the owner of the house, never to ask about the property’s dark history and never to abandon the children (at least one, anyway). This is no kid’s opera, so you might consider a babysitter for your visit. 

The story is full of twists in the form of 15 variations, with tension created by this “turn of the musical screw’’ − which also suggests a bad situation getting worse. And it does. As the Governess begins to see phantoms roaming about and the children, Flora and Miles, acting weirder by the hour, she vows to protect them from what might be an imaginary evil. Nobody knows what’s real or not, but if ghosts are an illusion, why is that rocking horse moving all by itself?