The Indiana Daily Student sat down with Michael Shell, the associate instructor of voice and resident stage director of the IU Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater, to discuss the upcoming opera “The Turn of the Screw.”
Performances of “The Turn of the Screw” will be held at 7:30 p.m. on March 7 and March 8 at the Musical Arts Center. Student tickets are available for both days and can be purchased for $10 on the Jacobs website.
“The Turn of the Screw” follows a young governess who is hired to care for two children in the countryside. Throughout the opera, the governess is increasingly convinced that the children are possessed by the spirits of the previous governess and manservant.
IDS: Who chooses the productions for the operas?
Shell: It's a committee of us that meet, faculty members and staff members that are involved with the opera theatre and we determine the season based on production needs, based on students that we have and also, most importantly, the pedagogical mission of giving them a variety of experiences in terms of repertoire and style of production.
IDS: What led the committee to choose “The Turn of the Screw”?
Shell: One of the reasons was we needed a show that didn't have a lot of roles in it, because we had a lot of roles in the other shows in the season. For example, there's a ton of people in “Carmen” coming up, and there were a lot of roles in “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” in the fall. So, we needed something that sort of worked well at this time and so this opera was specifically good for us. Also, this production (is) like the skeleton of the production I did during COVID-19, which was basically a very low budget kind of thing, and that also helped us kind of stay within a budget while doing something really creative.
IDS: You mentioned that you worked with parts of it during COVID-19. Have you worked with any other parts before that?
Shell: I did one scene, and it was my first big assistant director job at Glimmerglass Festival, and I had directed one of the scenes there, but that was it. I had known the opera for a long time, though. I mean, I knew it since I was 13, listened to it strangely enough. It was one of the first operas that I was sort of introduced to.
IDS: What's your favorite part about the story of the opera?
Shell: The ambiguity of not knowing whether or not the ghosts of the story are real or if they're not. If they're an invention of the governess through her need to prove that she's worthy of this man who hired her, trying to prove that she can solve problems and when something happens that sort of sets her mind to being curious and concerned about what is maybe potentially happening with the children. It starts to set off a chain of events that could be in her head or not.
IDS: What's your favorite part about the music in “The Turn of the Screw”?
Shell: I just, I love it. I don't really know how to describe why I love it because I've known it for so long. To me, everything makes sense. It all makes sense. It's perfectly suited for the subject matter. It's perfectly suited for telling the story, but also, it just keeps unfolding like a play and a really interesting one. I just think the music is really cool. I think the textures that Benjamin Britten created in the orchestra, with just 15 players, was really unique and fascinating, and the way that he built the whole opera based on a series of twelve notes is also very interesting in how it sort of keeps the drama tightly wound and driven, so it's good.
IDS: You mentioned that this is a smaller production, in terms of both cast and orchestra size. How does directing a chamber opera feel compared to others?
Shell: Well, I like it. I think the best thing about it is that it allows for different levels of singers to also be heard in the hall. Sometimes with these bigger orchestras we can't have certain types of singers because they won't be able to be heard over the orchestras. I think the thing that I like about this opera, in particular being a chamber opera, is that it's such a small story. It's such a story of being isolated in an area where there is no outside help. The governess is constantly feeling isolated, no one to help her, she's not able to even write to the children's uncle for help because that was something he told her. So, the smallness of the cast really helps with that sense of isolation. Also, the orchestra, though, I have to say, doesn't really feel like a small orchestra because of the way it's written. It's really quite strong, even though it's for a string choir and a wind choir, which is basically six, I think, players each.
IDS: How does it feel directing an opera that you have loved for so long?
Shell: I keep trying to think of it as like, okay, I have to cherish every moment of this, because not that it's not possible that we would do it again, but it's highly unlikely that I will direct it again, because while it's a popular opera, it's not always something that companies choose to do. I really sort of cherish getting to do it again and just enjoying being in the environment of being around it, hearing the music every night in rehearsal, getting to continually try to fine tune over these next few days.
IDS: A lot of operas are written in foreign languages and then translated to English during some productions. This one was originally written in English and will be performed in English. Why is that significant? Does it affect you or the cast’s process?
Shell: I definitely appreciate doing things in the original language. I think there's a lot of value to that, obviously the composers wrote it for the language that they were speaking and what they were familiar with or wrote it for the language of the people where they were. I think that there's a value in that also for educational purposes. I, for one, don't mind operas in English, I've done a lot at the Opera Theater of St. Louis, where they do every opera in English. When the libretto is created or translated in a really good way, it can be very valuable in breaking down the barrier between the audience and the stage or the story. That said, it's always going to be difficult to understand the words in opera, just because of the way some of the lines are extended or how long they sing a word. Also, for me, pedagogically speaking, the students could very quickly connect with obviously the English text versus a foreign language, which it takes a little while to sort of connect to the nuance of the language. That's why we do it because we want to train them in all of those things, but that's what makes this kind of easier and also easier to delve into, because there isn't that barrier of language. I don't want to sound like I'm saying that it's not good to sing in a foreign language, I just think there's a benefit to doing operas in English, especially for students who are learning to be in this profession.
IDS: What will audience members gain from attending the opera?
Shell: I think they'll just have a really interesting evening. I think it's a really great piece, it's dramatically interesting. I think seeing a story that's, for lack of a better word, spooky is something that's a little bit more unusual, not about love, not about typical opera themes. I think it's fascinating. I think it's also interesting as a drama.
CORRECTION: This article was updated to include the correct spelling of Benjamin Britten’s name
