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
The Aspern Papers (opera) The Aspern Papers (opera) The Aspern Papers is a 1987 opera in two acts with music and libretto by Dominick Argento, commissioned by The Dallas Opera. It is based on the novella "The Aspern Papers" by Henry James. The opera premiered on November 19, 1988, in Dallas with a cast including Elisabeth Söderström, Frederica von Stade, and Richard Stilwell, conducted by Nicola Rescigno. The premiere was telecast in the United States on "Great Performances" on PBS. Argento's opera makes numerous changes in the characters, plot and setting of Henry James' novella. For instance: Aspern is a composer, not a poet;