Q&A with Michelle Rofrano, Conductor of "The Turn of the Screw" (Part One)

Acclaimed Sicilian-American opera conductor Michelle Rofrano, founder and artistic director of PROTESTRA, an orchestral ensemble of activist-minded musicians that bridges the divide between social justice advocacy and classical music, makes her Curtis debut this month, leading a stellar cast of talented young opera singers and musicians in The Turn of the Screw.

In part one of this Q&A series, the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship Mentee and music and artistic director of City Lyric Opera discusses Britten’s spine-tingling opera, shares her excitement about working with Curtis Opera Theatre students, and more.

This is your second time conducting The Turn of the Screw. Now that you are intimately acquainted with the score, its evocative motifs, and tautly constructed scenes, what musical and theatrical aspects of the work do you find most rewarding?

The fascinating thing about this ghost story, and what’s so interesting about Henry James’s original story, is its ambiguity. Are the ghosts real, or are they a metaphor for evil? Is the Governess a completely unreliable narrator, and did she go crazy and imagine them? Over the years, people have confirmed that it’s the ambiguity that makes it so scary and brilliant. The audience can draw their own conclusion about whether it’s all real or not.

About six years ago, I conducted it with DC Public Opera and had just completed my graduate degree at Peabody. I’m excited to be diving into it again. I love doing an opera for the second or third time. The first time you’re just trying to upload the “what”—the notes, the text, and everything to your brain—and the second time you conduct it, you can focus on the “how.” And that’s influenced by the “why.” A good opera composer will look at how to do text painting with music, how to incorporate all these themes, and think about keeping the long line of the story going. Going back to an opera for a second time, especially one that you love and enjoyed, is a real treat.

The opera is famously built on a twelve-tone row, the “screw theme,” with three sections of tetrachords, fifths, and minor thirds covering all twelve tones. The variations are all linked by a step, so it’s this literal musical turning of the theme. It appears in different ways and clusters and returns at the end for the final climactic moment. Each character’s variation, theme, and leitmotif are also generally very tonal. Discovering all this for the first time and seeing how it works and builds the tension is just so cool.

The governess is not terrified from the beginning. At first, it’s an uneasy feeling, and then it’s eased. Then she has this curiosity when she hears footsteps or sees someone in a window, and she is unsure. Mrs. Grose tells her that it might be a ghost. Then she’s like, ooh, spooky, and her feelings gradually shift from uneasiness to curiosity to nervousness. It then turns into full-on paranoia, absolute fear, and tragedy. It’s these different shades of drama and intensity that we’re working to build with the singers and the orchestra.

Britten’s music and Myfanwy Piper’s libretto faithfully follow the storyline of Henry James’s 19th-century serial novella but veer considerably from the source material in that it gives speaking voices to the ominous pair of “visitors.” What makes this work so unique in the opera canon?

I think that comes down to the fact that it’s built so mathematically, if you will, on a tone row. It’s perfect in that way. It is still tonal and has these themes you love to hear in an opera. It tonally, dramatically, and vocally works built upon this perfect foundation. When it first appears, the MALO theme of Miles has four notes in Peter Quint’s theme, a figure that appears in the celesta. They’re related because Quint and Miles are connected.

I looked it up, and the expression “the turn of the screw” comes from a type of torture. Prisoners were forced to turn a crank, and a guard would tighten it so that it was harder each time. Something bad happens, and then something worse piles on top of that, so the tension tightens. I also read a quote that Britten came up with the “screw theme” and then was actively trying to build out everything from there. By the end, he found it hard to compose. He likened it to squeezing toothpaste out of a tube when there’s no toothpaste left. He built this box for himself that he had to fit in—keys, theme, and chord-wise—but then needed help with how to keep the themes unique. He managed to do it successfully. Every time I open the score, I find new things.

This is your conducting debut here at Curtis. What has been your experience since you arrived for rehearsals?

I’ve been so impressed by the level of musicianship. At the first read, everyone sounded so good. I look at my job as, how do I help this be a cohesive story and performance, and how do I help everyone do their best? These singers and instrumentalists, despite being in school, know more about their instruments than I ever will. They are the singer and the violinist on their way to becoming real experts. That’s what rehearsals are for—all the little details and how we fit them together—I try to shape it into this long cohesive, dramatic musical line of a story.

Visit Michelle Rofrano‘s official website HERE.

CURTIS OPERA THEATRE: THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Britten’s Gothic Tale of Terror

November 18, 2022 | Friday at 7:30 p.m.

November 20, 2022 | Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

Philadelphia Film Center

Click HERE for more information.

Q&A by Ryan Scott Lathan. Part two of this interview will appear in Curtis’s newsfeed on Tuesday, November 15, 2022.