"Only this much I know," the Governess sings in Benjamin Britten's spooky opera The Turn of the Screw, "things have been done here that are not good, and have left a taste behind them."

The taste is unsettling, to be sure, but also hauntingly ambiguous. In two acts of less than an hour apiece, we ponder just what has happened--indeed, what is happening in "real" time. If you think of opera as pretentious and/or hopelessly sentimental, but you love mysteries and ghost stories, this may be just your ticket. Just don't let the "modern opera" label scare you: scattered among sonically weird weavings are passages of exquisite beauty and tunes you'll hum on your way out of the theater.

Friday night's Dallas Opera performance, at the Winspear Opera House, was high-stakes theater, the kind that sends the occasional chill down your back, makes you grip the armrest, even squirm a bit. A chamber opera scored for just six singers and 13 instrumentalists, it got a visually arresting production (from the Glyndebourne Festival), some stunning singing and magically evocative playing from members of the Dallas Opera Orchestra. On a high podium, principal guest conductor Nicole Paiement shaped the music with a flawless balance of precision and evocation.

From left, Emma Bell (Governess), Oliver Nathanielsz (Miles), Ashley Emerson (Flora) and Dolora Zajick (Mrs. Grose) during a dress rehearsal of "The Turn of the Screw," performed by the Dallas Opera, Wednesday evening, March 08, 2017 at the Winspear Opera House in Downtown Dallas. Ben Torres/Special Contributor

Based on a Henry James novella, The Turn of the Screw portrays a young governess given charge of two orphaned children. Miles and Flora first seem delightful and innocent, but the governess soon senses dark undercurrents. When the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, tells of a sinister former valet, Peter Quint, and the former governess, Miss Jessel, the new governess--she's given no name--increasingly perceives them as real ghostly presences. In the end, she imagines herself in a battle for Miles' very soul.

Without quite saying so, the story more than suggests that Quint was an equal-opportunity sexual abuser. In this production, originally conceived by Jonathan Kent and staged here by Francesca Gilpin, there are indeed uncomfortable, but also surprisingly tender, physical encounters between Quint and Miles. Miss Jessel seeks companionship more emotional than physical with Flora. Gilpin also plausibly suggests some physical attraction, maybe even mutual, between the new governess and Miles.

Layers upon layers of psychological ambiguities make this a uniquely powerful opera. Are Quint and Miss Jessel real presences or figments of the Governess' increasingly possessive paranoia? Are Miles and Flora demonically possessed or just normal children with streaks of fancy and naughtiness? Is this a story of the children's gradual corruption or that of the Governess?

Nominally transferring the action from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th, set and costume designer Paul Brown makes much of just a few elements: turntables, a couple of projections, a big wall of windows, gnarly tree branches and a few pieces of furniture. Mark Henderson's original lighting, recreated by David Manion, works sinister magic.

English soprano Emma Bell's Governess sings ravishingly, beautifully molding and coloring every phrase, but also vividly portraying her battle with demons, whether internal or external. I only wished for more clarity of diction--the opera is in English--but there are supertitles. The role of Quint (doubling as Prologue) was conceived for Britten's lover Peter Pears, and wants a more elegant, seductive tenor than William Burden. But I can see an argument for Burden's more blatant, less legato vocalism, and his diction is clear as can be.

Tenor William Burden (Prologue/Peter Quint) during a dress rehearsal of "The Turn of the Screw," performed by the Dallas Opera, Wednesday evening, March 08, 2017 at the Winspear Opera House in Downtown Dallas. Ben Torres/Special Contributor

The celebrated Verdian mezzo Dolora Zajick is, if anything, too much of a good thing as a fussbudget Mrs. Grose, her enormous voice sometimes obliterating everything around her. But she also manages some exquisite high pianissimos, and she and Bell blend gorgeously in duets. Alexandra LoBianco is aptly creepy as Miss Jessel, with mezzo-ish richness to her substantive soprano.

Dolora Zajick (Mrs. Grose), Ashley Emerson (Flora) and Oliver Nathanielsz (Miles) in Dallas Opera dress rehearsal of "The Turn of the Screw" on March 14, 2017 at Winspear Opera House in downtown Dallas. Karen Almond/Dallas Opera.

At what must be final weeks of prepubescence, Oliver Nathanielsz supplies a treble of impressive power and accuracy, and his Miles cunningly mingles innocence and manipulation. Ashley Emerson is a plausibly petite Flora, with a lovely soprano.

Former classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell now covers the beat as a freelancer.

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Repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday and at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and March 25 at Winspear Opera House, 2403 Flora.