A Study Of Benjamin Britten's Opera The Turn Of The Screw

Benjamin Britten was one of the most outstanding composers of the 20th century in England. His opera The Turn of the Screw was a chamber opera, created in 1954. The predominant characteristic of this opera was both the unique structure and careful music writing. This article, based on the detailed analysis of this opera, deep comprehension of the original work, study of the script, and analysis of Britten's opera music creation technique, tried to make a concrete and complete analysis of the structure, character arrangement, music creation technique and the control of the drama tension.This article is consisted of three parts roughly:the first part (first chapter) is a research about material beyond the opera, but relating to the opera. So this part not only makes a summary and a understanding of the original's storyline, but meanwhile, it also describes the script thoroughly. And it is also a sweeping generalization of the structure arrangement made by Britten, as well as an introduction of the main characters in every scene, and other music arrangement. The second part (second chapter) makes an analysis around Britten's writing about his opera's theme and variation. Depended on the theme and the particularity of the variation, this part begins with the theme and variation, stresses the conflict among tonalities and the diversity of the variation writing, and emphasizes the control of the drama tension correspondingly. The third part (third chapter), unifies the arrangements between each characters writing and every climax fragment, points out the tension further and emphatically.Britten placed the structure precisely in The Turn of the Screw, establishing the unique skeleton. With the utilization of story, script trade-off, conflict among tonalities, subject variation, twelve-tone technique, Pasacaglia, Toccata, and orchestration, Britten depicted every single one of the character efficiently, not emphasizing the subject only, but meanwhile also balancing the drama tension and the music. Besides, Britten still, by way of depiction and story arrangement, suggested the particularity, emphasized psychic changes of characters, and made a summary of all the elements in the opera accordingly.With his own musical language, Britten showed us a ghost story in an alternative bright and dark way. He described the characters'psychic changes through music, revealed conflict of the play, and explained the underlying meaning of the ghost story precisely, achieving high unification of the music and the drama. The Turn of the Screw was another chamber opera after The Rape of Lucretia. This opera stressed the effectiveness of the chamber opera development. Thanks to the special structure, this chamber opera could be demonstrated so well even in a small orchestra that the play plot also would be full expressed and the music technique would be portrayed vividly, achieving the composer's creation goal finally.