Elizabeth Atherton, The Governess

Can you tell us a bit about the character of the Governess, and her progression through the opera?
The Governess is the daughter of a parson, the youngest in the family, and you get the feeling that she has led a rather repressed and closeted life until she travels to Bly to look after Miles and Flora. Even from the start there is an intensity and nervousness about her, and this becomes more and more evident as her psychological state declines and her fear and paranoia increase. How much of what happens and what she thinks is happening is actually real and how much is in her mind is ultimately left up to the audience to decide. Her imagination is obviously very vivid and as she has no real life experiences to measure anything against she becomes increasingly suspicious and neurotic. Ultimately, it is her innocence that is her undoing – she sings “oh innocence, you have corrupted me” – as even the most seemingly innocuous actions by the children become dark and sinister to her.

We’ve previously seen you in lighter roles, including last year in Così fan tutte. How do you prepare for something like this, which is a bit darker?
I found I couldn’t spend too long at a time on it or I’d end up a bit of a mental and physical wreck! Having a one-and-a-half year-old son helped as I was only able to spend short, intense bursts of time on the score before my attentions were needed elsewhere!

Are there any specific challenges involved in performing Britten’s music, and what do you particularly enjoy about it?
Britten’s scores can initially seem complex in terms of rhythm, melody and harmony, but I find that once I’ve spent the time and put in the effort to get inside his sound world, the rewards are enormous. His music becomes totally logical and I wonder why I ever found it complicated. He combines the music and the text so naturally, always serving the story-telling and drama, and there is a reason for every little expression marking so that tiny subtleties can be highlighted with one tiny accent or hair-pin dynamic marking. Britten wrote so well for the voice, understanding its capabilities and limitations, and I feel that his lyric soprano roles fit me like a glove, so they are extremely satisfying for me to sing and perform.

Why do you think people should come and see this production?
Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is a fantastic story of psychological complexity that lends itself perfectly to Britten’s vivid treatment of it. It can be taken simply at face value as a ghost story, or one can read so much more into it, questioning everything that happens and the characters that you are presented with on stage. For an opera it is nice and concise at only two hours length and, as it uses a chamber orchestra, it allows various members of the Opera North orchestra to shine as soloists (listen out for Tony Kraus’s superb piano playing – virtually a piano concerto going on in the pit at times!).

Finally, there is a strong supernatural theme running through this opera; have you ever had any supernatural experiences or do you know someone who has?
Yvonne Howard (who plays the housekeeper Mrs Grose) was telling us the other day that she experienced the supernatural as a child when she used to step over a “body” (which was not visible) on her grandmother’s kitchen floor. She didn’t think anything strange about it - just that she could feel that there was something there that she must step over - until she was told that the previous occupier of the flat had died in exactly that spot.

• Listen to an excerpt from The Turn of the Screw, The Tower, Lambourne Productions

  (Approximately 30 Seconds)