(no subject)

[phineasjones]

♥! really, i'm feeling it. you are such lovely and supportive people. i'm lucky.

dress rehearsal for the music service went quite well. ahhhh. i'm not nervous about tomorrow! alxamdulilaah!

has anyone out there read the turn of the screw? i have not but i have now read the libretto for britten's opera and... wtf? the ghost of a child molester haunts the house and eventually somehow supernaturally kills the kid? and it's really all about sexuality? i'm a bit confused by it. but the overwhelming creepiness definitely comes through.

the music is hard. i am going to have to do pretty much nothing but study the score for the next week. i'll just be glad i'm not one of the singers.

i have three bras that i like and wear regularly. suddenly two of them have broken underwire on the left side. wtf is up with my left breast? the remaining bra is black lace and thus not suitable for all clothing. alas, i must go shopping.

::smacks forehead:: i haven't even looked at the lotrips remixes yet! d'oh.

Comments

[jjtaylor.livejournal.com]

Haven't read Turn of the Screw, but saw a high school performance of the book-turned-play. Not when I was in High School - just went with a friend to see her students performing. From what I remember, there's a ghost in the house where a new nanny has arrived to take over two difficult children. The ghost and his love were somehow killed/drowned, but their love pervades and seeks to live again, through the children? And so the little kids are acting all sexually charged because they're possessed by older ghosts? Not sure now if maybe this was prettied up for a high school audience.

Anyway, overall, I really enjoyed the play - it's a captivating story, because it's part mystery, part emotional drama.

I'm very curious to know what you think of the story once you know it better.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

hmm,well, i'm not sure how that compares to the books but it certainly seems like a prettied up version compared to the opera. the male ghost, quint, is said to have 'made free' with just about everyone - thereby corrupting the old governess (female ghost). and his favorite, it would seem, was miles, the boy. quint and miss jessel (governess ghost) are in a lot of the opera and sing about their desire to bring miles and flora (the girl) to them. quint is after miles, miss jessel's after flora. and the kids seem torn. sometimes they're all happy and cute and then things will suddenly turn sinister.

i've read some interpretations of the books wherein the ghosts aren't real and it's all a tale of the current governess going insane. i don't think that's how britten saw it, though there's still some ambiguity. i think the whole repressed sexuality theme comes out pretty clearly in the opera. and it's all especially fascinating when you consider britten's closeted homosexuality, his predilection for boys and the fact that peter pears, britten's partner, played quint in the original production.