'Turn of the Screw': All points are sharp

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"The Turn of the Screw" By Benjamin Britten, with Peter Erös conducting, in a University of Washington Opera production; Meany Theater, Wednesday night (repeated at 7:30 p.m. tonight, 3 p.m. Sunday); 206-543-4880.

Nothing is simple or straightforward about Benjamin Britten's "The Turn of the Screw," a tricky and complicated series of scenes that tell Henry James' harrowing story about supernatural possession. The opera is a challenge to stage, conduct and sing - a challenge that the University of Washington Opera has met surprisingly well.

The set, spare and angular, uses a trapezoidal floor that extends forward over part of the orchestra pit. Steve TenEyck's design is brilliantly lighted by Laura Jean Wickman, allowing director Claudia Zahn plenty of scope for thought-provoking staging.

At one key point, the Governess (Sarah Roberts, who is excellent) emerges through a backlit, angled opening from the room where the sinister ghosts, Quint (Scott Kendall) and Miss Jessel (Elizabeth Bakke), embrace on the bed; the tableau is striking.

The two ghosts are not the mildly menacing, distant entities of some "Turn of the Screw" productions; Quint and Jessel are very real and quite scary (Bakke in particular projects a vixenlike menace.)

The singing is of a standard to give new confidence in the quality of teaching at the UW (it's most unfortunate that Carmen Pelton, one of the stars of the voice faculty, is departing for the University of Michigan). Michelle T. Rice (Mrs. Grose) has a powerful and resonant mezzo-soprano; Antie Farmer is a most convincing Flora. Kendall and Bakke both sing with confidence and expression, and Roberts' Governess is vocally and dramatically mature enough to do justice to many a professional production.

As the young boy Miles, guest artist Mick Newell, 12, sings with strength and clarity, showing the wide experience he has already gained in such Seattle Opera productions as "Tosca," "Billy Budd" and "Boris Godunov."

The real hero of the production is Peter Erös, whose baton kept everything in order and in balance. His orchestra gave a fairly clean account of this fiercely complicated score - aided by fine performances from well-schooled woodwinds.

Melinda Bargreen: 206-464-2321 or mbargreen@seattletimes.com.