The Turn of the Screw (opera) composer conducting. Described as one of the most dramatically appealing English operas, the opera in two acts has a prologue and sixteen scenes, each preceded by a variation on the twelve-note 'Screw' theme. Typically of Britten, the music mixes tonality and dissonance, with Britten's recurrent use of a twelve-tone figure being perhaps a nod to the approach of Arnold Schoenberg. Thematically, the play gives a central role to a line borrowed from W. B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming": "The ceremony of innocence is drowned." The opera was given its British premiere on 6 October 1954 by the Sadler's Wells
James Henry Mapleson James Henry Mapleson James Henry Mapleson (Colonel Mapleson) (4 May 1830 – 14 November 1901) was an English opera impresario, probably the leading figure instrumental in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London and New York City in the second half of the 19th century. Mapleson was born in London, England. He studied first as a singer and violinist at the Royal Academy of Music in London and served in the army. In 1849, Mapleson organized a tour of the British provinces with a concert company that included Henriette Sontag, Luigi Lablache and pianist