REVIEW: Turn of the Screw (Boston Globe)

With a fantastic cast on board, Enigma Chamber Opera debuts

The new company’s ’The Turn of the Screw’ offered the Victorian-era ghost story as contemporary psychodrama

Mental illness is notoriously difficult to carry off onstage, especially when adapting pre-existing material. For that, thank goodness for soprano Aliana de la Guardia. The co-founder of contemporary company Guerilla Opera doesn’t often take standard repertoire roles, but she fully showed up for this one. She made every use of Peter Torpey’s claustrophobic studio apartment set, staggering across the room to the sink and hiding under pillows, and her willowy soprano voice glimmered with faint sparks of hope before slowly descending into the abyss…the Governess’s torment felt quite real, and de la Guardia dragged me through the wringer with her.