Lauren Worsham and Benjamin P. Wenzelberg hear dead people in “The Turn of the Screw.” (Richard Termine)
When is good enough not quite good enough?
For the answer, look no further than New York City Opera’s production of Benjamin Britten’s “The Turn of the Screw.” Opening at BAM on Sunday, just after the edgy brilliance of the company’s “Powder Her Face” last week, the uninspired competence of “Screw” is a huge letdown.
The 1954 chamber opera, adapted from a story by Henry James, tells of a governess sent to an English country house to care for two troubled children — who, as it turns out, are haunted by jealous ghosts.
Britten’s eerie, minor-key music evokes horror and even implies a creepily inappropriate relationship between the young boy Miles and the late valet, Quint.
But director Sam Buntrock’s production remained firmly literal, though it updated the Victorian tale to a 1980s suburban home right out of “Poltergeist.” In front of a cheap-looking set of door frames and dangling light bulbs, the cast was mostly left to stand and sing concert-style.
Even the spellbinding final scene, in which Quint and the governess struggle for Miles’ soul, looked like little more than three opera singers playing tug of war.
NYCO favorite Sara Jakubiak’s blandly attractive soprano hardly hinted at the governess’ mounting hysteria. She was no match for Dominic Armstrong’s macabre Quint, sung in a colorful tenor ranging from whispers to blood-chilling cries.
As the other ghost, Miss Jessel, soprano Jennifer Goode Cooper emerged from a trap door — one of the production’s meager “supernatural” effects — to reveal easy, bright top notes, and Sharmay Musacchio’s firm contralto helped ground Mrs. Grose, the clueless housekeeper.
If Lauren Worsham came off a little long in the tooth for the child Flora, boy soprano Benjamin P. Wenzelberg sang the important role of bad-boy Miles in a true and penetrating treble.
Musically, this “Screw” was middle-of-the-road, with conductor Jayce Ogren leading a slow and tentative reading of the delicate chamber score.
No, nothing really awful here — just nothing exciting. But for a company hoping to build a fire under its audience, so much “nothing” is scary, indeed.