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“The performance itself [is] undeniably a high standard…..the recorded sound is vivid and immediate… everyone is having fun.”International Record Review

“You could not hope for a stronger cast” The Times

“A clever and beautifully made dramatisation” Sunday Times

“This was thrilling stuff, as exciting visually as it was aurally” Sunday Telegraph

“Ian Hart is brilliant as Beethoven, a volatile, magnetic figure of genius and uncouth charm…not to be missed” Daily Mail

“'June 1804' says the legend at the film's opening.
Denis Matthews (in his Master Musicians volume) thought it was six months later that the Eroica was given a first run-through in the palace of Prince Lobkowitz, but had that been so we should have been denied Beethoven and his pupil Ferdinand Ries tramping river banks, and Beethoven and the object of his unrequited love lazing idly in the palace courtyard, so June it is.
Let's not complain: historical verisimilitude is always going to be at a premium in such reconstructions, and the makers of this BBC film do not take us for fools. They use what we know of the people and places concerned to invent a plausible narrative of politics, love and anger that, most importantly, centres on the music.
In fact the domestic scale of the setting is a powerful reminder of the work's vast reach and capacity to shock. Potential purchasers will have to judge for themselves whether they are likely to be bothered by the soundtrack being palpably separate from the visuals, or the orchestra being visibly smaller than the sum of its excellent parts.
The recording is instrumental in bringing film and symphony to life: winds to the fore, bassoons and growly double-basses balefully everpresent.
In the Eroica itself, Gardiner's first movement (without its repeat) has a bare and remorseless intensity; his own previous DG recording is nearer Beethoven's metronome mark and some distance further from the expressive force of this new recording. The Scherzo is a little plainly phrased but Gardiner springs his surprise with the finale. A tempo that seems at first tepid grows around the music, allowing the fugue its due weight, the flute solo its pathos and the horns their full measure of glory.
The film's producers think the performance worth hearing on a separate set of tracks, without noises off: there are only so many times that you will want to hear Beethoven tell Ries to 'piss off' after his pupil has interrupted halfway through the first movement. In a further act of charity, Opus Arte spares us the otherwise ubiquitous musical excerpt over the title menus. The enterprise is probably a one-off but it's tempting to imagine what this team could do with the Fifth, or even the Ninth.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

"Overall, it's difficult not to be inspired by work like this. Loussier's arrangements, as Schwab puts it, 'give back to Baroque music, with its tendency towards rhythmic uniformity, a vitality and spontaneity that makes it sound fresh and alive to our modern ears.' And, aside from viewing the live performance, it doesn't get much fresher than on a DVD like this. A beautifully filmed, beautiful performed and beautifully presented concert, I truly cannot recommend this enough." - Robert Gibson, Musicweb International

“This film was much lauded when shown on BBC2. Katie Mitchell's arresting production opens up the story, taking it into the countryside and producing spooky and louring images to create the mysterious and dangerous aura of Bly, which does no harm to the intentions of Henry James and Benjamin Britten. Mitchell allows the characters' interior monologues to be heard while the singers' mouths remain closed – especially apt for the role of the Governess.
For about two-thirds of the work the director keeps within the boundaries stipulated by Britten and librettist Myfanwy Piper, making us fully aware of the ambiguities of the participants and their relationships. But in the third part she rather allows her ideas to get out of hand, the nightmarish images becoming too surreal, especially for the ghosts and the children, although she recovers in time to make the final struggle between the Governess and Quint for Miles's soul an arresting close. We're left, as we should be, uncertain at the state of the Governess's mind and the exact powers of the ghosts.
Richard Hickox commands every aspect of the tricky score, lovingly executed by members of his City of London Sinfonia, even if the balance with the singers sometimes goes awry.
The cast is splendid. Nicholas Kirby Johnson as Miles achieves just the right balance between innocence and knowingness. His singing is fluent and pointed, as is that of Caroline Wise, a teenage Flora with a lively presence, expressive eyes and a malleable voice. Lisa Milne, unflatteringly garbed, is rather too confident of voice and mien as the Governess. Although she sings with her customary clarity of line and word, she doesn't suggest the nervous vulnerability of Jennifer Vyvyan, who created the role. Diana Montague is a gratifyingly sympathetic Mrs Grose, using body language to convey just the right feeling of apprehension and concern over the fate of her charges. Mark Padmore is among the best of Quints, vocally and histrionically. Catryn Wyn-Davies is a properly wild and scary Miss Jessel. All in all, this is the version to have.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Katie Mitchell directs very much in the BBC classic manner… Bly's grand but bleak interiors and iron-grey woodlands splendidly atmospheric. Hickox and his exceptional cast capture beautifully the escalating tension that makes the score so gripping in the theatre. Lisa Milne sings the Governess as finely as any on disc; more plumply prosaic than the usual tormented waif, her growing hysteria is all the more alarming. By contrast Diana Montague's Mrs Grose is unusually tall and patrician, but utterly convincing. Catrin Wyn Davies is a sensuous, eerie Miss Jessel, but Mark Padmore's Quint, though mellifluous, could use more supernatural menace... Caroline Wise and Nicolas Kirkby Johnson as the children, though, are ideal... and they sing with genuine expressive power. ...one of the truest opera films to date.” BBC Music Magazine, May 2005 *****

“What Katie Mitchell has devised is a highly evocative film to go with a performance of The Turn of the Screw. The result is very different from a conventional staging, with the singers, for much of the time, acting out their roles without being seen...A distinctive version with many great qualities, most of all in presenting the full horror of the story, set against an eerie background.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ***