Richard Farnes

Richard Farnes (born 1964) is a British conductor, and is Music Director of Opera North.

Education

Farnes was a chorister at King's College, Cambridge before entering Eton College as a music scholar in 1977. He returned to King's as organ scholar in 1983 and subsequently studied at the Royal Academy of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio.

Later career

During his professional career, he has conducted operas at the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Scottish Opera, English Touring Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and Glyndebourne on Tour, among other companies. He has also conducted the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Before joining Opera North in 2004, Farnes had conducted The Secret Marriage, The Marriage of Figaro, Joan of Arc, La Traviata, Eugene Onegin, Gloriana and Tosca for the company, as well as the world première of The Nightingale's to Blame by Simon Holt. The operas he has conducted since becoming Music Director include La rondine, Salome, Falstaff, Macbeth, Katya Kabanova and the award-winning Peter Grimes.

The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw, originally published in 1898, is a gothic ghost story novella written by Henry James.

Due to its original content, the novella became a favourite text of academics who subscribe to New Criticism. The novella has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive. Many critics have tried to determine the exact nature of the evil hinted at by the story. However, others have argued that the true brilliance of the novella comes with its ability to create an intimate confusion and suspense for the reader.

Plot

An unnamed narrator listens to Douglas, a friend, read a manuscript written by a former governess whom Douglas claims to have known and who is now dead. The manuscript tells the story of how the young governess is hired by a man who has become responsible for his young nephew and niece after the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London and is uninterested in raising the children himself.

The boy, Miles, is attending a boarding school, while his younger sister, Flora, is living at a country estate in Essex. She is currently being cared for by the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. The governess' new employer, Miles and Flora's uncle, gives her full charge of the children and explicitly states that she is not to bother him with communications of any sort. The governess travels to her new employer's country house, Bly, and begins her duties.

The Turn of the Screw (opera)

The Turn of the Screw is a 20th-century English chamber opera composed by Benjamin Britten with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, "wife of the artist John Piper, who had been a friend of the composer since 1935 and had provided designs for several of the operas". The libretto is based on the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The opera was commissioned by the Venice Biennale and given its world premiere on 14 September 1954, at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice. The original recording was made during that year, with the composer conducting.

Described as one of the most dramatically appealing English operas, the opera in two acts has a prologue and sixteen scenes, each preceded by a variation on the twelve-note 'Screw' theme. Typically of Britten, the music mixes tonality and dissonance, with Britten's recurrent use of a twelve-tone figure being perhaps a nod to the approach of Arnold Schoenberg. Thematically, the play gives a central role to a line borrowed from W. B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming": "The ceremony of innocence is drowned."

The Turn of the Screw (2009 film)

The Turn of the Screw (also known as Ghost Story: The Turn of the Screw) is a British television film based on Henry James's 1898 ghost story of the same name. Commissioned and produced by the BBC, it was first broadcast on 30 December 2009, on BBC One. The novella was adapted for the screen by Sandy Welch, and the film was directed by Tim Fywell. Although generally true to the tone and story of James's work, the film is set in the 1920s—in contrast to the original 1840s setting—and accentuates sexual elements that some theorists have identified in the novella. The film's story is told in flashbacks during consultations between the institutionalised Ann (Michelle Dockery) and Dr Fisher (Dan Stevens). Ann tells how she was hired by an aristocrat (Mark Umbers) to care for the orphans Miles (Josef Lindsay) and Flora (Eva Sayer). She is met at the children's home, Bly, by Mrs Grose (Sue Johnston), the housekeeper. Ann soon begins to see unknown figures around the manor, and seeks an explanation.