Daniel Harding's superb recording of Turn of the Screw should be of interest to anyone who loves the opera. The delicate, finely shaded orchestral colors are vividly rendered and details emerge with clarity and sharp definition. Harding treats the score as the chamber music that it actually is, and the result is a performance of revelatory intimacy. His flexibility gives the evocative score plenty of room to breathe, and his pacing generally moves opera inexorably on, although the conflict of the final scene lacks the ...
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Daniel Harding's superb recording of Turn of the Screw should be of interest to anyone who loves the opera. The delicate, finely shaded orchestral colors are vividly rendered and details emerge with clarity and sharp definition. Harding treats the score as the chamber music that it actually is, and the result is a performance of revelatory intimacy. His flexibility gives the evocative score plenty of room to breathe, and his pacing generally moves opera inexorably on, although the conflict of the final scene lacks the necessary urgency to keep from seeming like an anticlimax. Comparisons with the original Britten recording from 1954 are inevitable, and in just about every way this version is an improvement. Ian Bostridge's voice is far more pleasant than Peter Pears', but his interpretation is not so different, and he summons up a genuine sense of menace as Peter Quint. Bostridge's interpretation of the Prologue, though, is a marked improvement over Pears', a not insignificant factor given how critical...
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