Monthly Archives: January 2009
Critical condition
Reactions to the Royal Opera’s production of Die tote Stadt are slowly starting to roll in; some have been favorable, others not so much. As I read through that second group of reviews I kept thinking about Hugo Wolf’s “Abschied,” … Continue reading
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The most monstrous and incredible ghost-story
One last contemporary reaction to “Turn of the Screw,” this time from the December, 1898, issue of The Critic. Quite a contrast from the scathing critique I posted yesterday! “The subject matter of ‘The Turn of the Screw’ is also … Continue reading
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The holiest and sweetest fountain of human innocence
The unnamed author of this third reaction to “Turn of the Screw,” which appeared in the January 5, 1899, issue of a publication called The Independent, lays it all out on the table in that first sentence. Note the strong … Continue reading
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Mr. James’s new book
Following up on my previous post, here’s another contemporary reaction to James’s “Turn of the Screw,” published in the November, 1898, issue of The Bookman. “Mr. James is in a queer mood. Nearly all his later stories have been tending … Continue reading
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The magic of evil
Ever since its initial publication in 1898, Henry James’s “The Turn of the Screw” has been the focus of perhaps more scholarly and critical debate than just about any other piece of short fiction in the English language. It is … Continue reading
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A piece of ingenuity plain and simple
I mentioned in my last post that I wanted to provide a brief synopsis of James’s “Turn of the Screw,” and so here, in greatly reduced form, are what seem to me to be the main events of the story. … Continue reading
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Turning the screw
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be blogging quite a bit about Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw and the Henry James novella that served as the basis for its libretto. (To make the distinction between the two … Continue reading
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Die tote Stadt
Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Die tote Stadt will receive its (cough…cough…long overdue..cough…cough) UK stage premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden later this month, and Jessica Duchen–the author of an excellent biography of the composer–is counting down the days to … Continue reading
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The composer’s duty
In 1964, Benjamin Britten was chosen from over one hundred nominations to be the first recipient of Aspen Award, established the previous year by Robert O. Anderson of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies to honor “the individual anywhere in … Continue reading
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The Nightcomers
I planned to post something yesterday or today about Britten’s Turn of the Screw, but this will have to wait a bit while I work through some computer-related issues. To tide you over until then, I thought I’d share this … Continue reading
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