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 Duchess of Malfi (opera) The Duchess of Malfi (opera) The Duchess of Malfi is an opera in three acts by the British composer Stephen Oliver, based on the eponymous play by John Webster. Oliver originally wrote this opera, his ninth in 1971, at age 21, for a production at the Oxford Playhouse on commission from the Oxford University Opera Club. The premiere was on November 23, 1971, with the following cast members: The conductor was Peter Robinson, and the director Julian Hope. Oliver then rewrote the work, and the revised version received its US premiere at Santa Fe Opera on August 5, 1978. The