This performance captures the sense of dislocation essential to this chilling ghost story.

he beauty of [Bostridge's] calls to Miles from the tower in the First Act convince you that he could cast a spell over the boy...Vocally Rodgers is dependably secure, often very beautiful, and always intelligent...Top marks to the lot: well-paced, atmospheric, and detailed.

This absorbing version of Britten's arresting masterpiece, derived from Henry James's ever-mysterious short story, is based on the stage performances given by London's Royal Opera in Deborah Warner's controversial staging. It offers a considerable challenge to both the premiere recording, conducted by the composer, and the more recent version conducted by Steuart Bedford. The new recording catches all the sinister fascination of Britten's most tautly composed opera score, so aptly matched to James's tale and to Myfanwy Piper's evocative libretto.
Daniel Harding extracts the greatest tension from both the finely wrought writing for the chamber ensemble and from the well-balanced and, by and large, exemplary cast. He's helped by the clearest and most detailed recording the work has yet received.
When discussing the merits of the casts one is comparing three teams of undoubted excellence.
Nevertheless there are distinctions to be made. As on stage, Joan Rodgers nicely balances the need to suggest the ingenuous and the excitable side of the Governess's nature, which she conveys in a performance that combines clarity of diction with the vocal verities. Bostridge's ethereal, other-worldly, eerily magnetic Quint provides an interesting contrast with Philip Langridge's more forceful and present assumption for Bedford. Both are preferable to Pears's more mannered singing on the pioneering set, but that, needless to say, has its own authority.
On the other hand neither Vivian Tierney nor Nadine Secunde (Bedford) quite match the searing sadness of Arda Mandikian's dark-hued Miss Jessel for Britten. In the case of Mrs Grose, Jane Henschel, imposingly as she sings, sounds a trifle too stock-operatic in her responses to words and notes beside the particular gentility of Joan Cross (Britten) or the marvellously detailed and intensely uttered interpretation of Phyllis Cannan (Bedford).
This is an utterly absorbing version. Given its masterly engineering and sense of atmosphere it's, by a hair's-breadth, preferable to the Bedford among stereo recordings. The composer's set remains both a historic document and the tautest reading, but most will prefer and be satisfied with the conviction and the sound of this newcomer.

The whole achievement...seems as remarkable on disc as it did in the theatre...Harding knits together the strands of the chamber orchestration with great adroitness...Rodgers is arguably the finest Governess of all, projecting an intriguing amalgam of hysteria, common sense and obsessive protectiveness in elegantly chiselled lines and unfailing beauty of tone.