At Wilton’s Music Hall, a ghost light for Britten’s ghost story

By Mark Pullinger, 28 January 2021

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“we brush past barley-sugar twisted pillars and rusty pipes, clamber the rickety staircases”

Reviewed at Wilton's Music Hall, London on 26 January 2021

Britten, The Turn of the Screw

OperaGlass Works

John Wilson, Conductor

Selina Cadell, Director

Tom Piper, Set Designer

Rosalind Ebbutt, Costume Designer

Lewis Hannaby, Lighting Designer

Eliza Thompson, Director

Dominic Best, Co-director

Robert Murray, Peter Quint, The Prologue

Rhian Lois, Governess

Gweneth-Ann Rand, Mrs Grose

Francesca Chiejina, Miss Jessel

Leo Jemison, Miles

Alys Mererid Roberts, Flora

Devilishly good fun: The Rake's Progress

Benjamin Poore, 17th November

A compelling and energetic debut production from a new opera company in the raddled surroundings of Wilton's Music Hall.

****1

The triumph of virtue: Rossini’s Cenerentola in Brisbane

Sandra Bowdler, 29th April

Margarita Gritskova leads a fine ensemble performance of Rossini’s most under-appreciated opera by Opera Queensland.

****1

Grigolo shines in a mixed new Roméo et Juliette at the Opera di Roma

Pia Maltri, 28th April

With its 1940s setting, Luca Del Fusco’s direction alienates in a new production of Gounod's Shakespeare-inspired opera.

***11

Romeo Castellucci directs a new Pelléas et Mélisande at La Scala

Laura Servidei, 26th April

The Italian director makes his long-awaited Italian operatic debut at the Teatro alla Scala in a production which perfectly mirrors Debussy’s most enigmatic creation.

****1

Chiaroscuro extinguished: a self-indulgent Poppea in Copenhagen

Mengguang Huang, 26th April

Christoph Marthaler’s staging of Monteverdi’s Poppea for the Royal Danish Opera is a study in boredom.

**111

Lepage’s Bluebeard and Erwartung pairing remains compelling theatre

John Gilks, 25th April

Some 30 years after its first appearance, Robert Lepage’s double bill of Duke Bluebeards Castle and Erwartung is still strikingly effective and very modern-looking music theatre.

*****

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Mark Pullinger

Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.