Isabelle Peters rehearsing for Turn of the Screw [Max Miechowski]

BENJAMIN Britten’s Turn of the Screw is one of those small-scale operas that punch way above their weight. With just six singers and an orchestra of 13, it can hammer holes into your soul. And its story of young children haunted (maybe) by possessive ghosts while their neurotic governess attempts to save them carries undercurrents of abuse that were disturbing enough in the 1950s when Britten wrote the piece and feel even more uncomfortable today.

But it remains one of the great works of 20th-century lyric theatre, and a new production opens at the Royal Opera’s Linbury auditorium, Mar 26 – with a run on tickets that means you’ll probably be chasing returns. But it’s worth the effort. And you might want to know that Britten wrote the pivotal role of the governess for Hampstead’s celebrated soprano Jennifer Vyvyan who lived in Fitzjohn’s Avenue (there’s a plaque) and has a website bulging with background material about Screw: www.jennifervyvyan.org. Show runs to Apr 6. rbo.org.uk

• Meanwhile, the Royal Opera is reviving its rather blunt production of Rigoletto, Mar 25-Apr 23 (rbo.org.uk). And there are two Handel operas in unlikely venues this week: Tamerlano at Shoreditch Town Hall, Mar 26-28 (london-handel-festival.com); and Hercules at St Martin in the Fields, Mar 20, featuring Britain’s rising star countertenor Hugh Cutting – who was shortlisted for a Royal Philharmonic Society Award last week and should have got it, though he didn’t (smitf.org).

• Not an opera but sounding like something proximate, a new work by composer Tansy Davies called The Passion of Mary Magdalene premieres at the Barbican, Mar 24 – done by the Dunedin Consort and featuring the fabulous Anna Dennis as the eponymous Mary who follows Jesus (the closest he gets to a female disciple) and witnesses his crucifixion. This is a chance to see the piece before it travels up to the Edinburgh Festival. barbican.org.uk

• Staying spiritual, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater – about another Mary, Jesus’s mother, standing at the foot of the cross – plays at St James, Muswell Hill, Mar 21, courtesy of the North London Chorus (northlondonchorus.org). And Mendelssohn’s oratorio St Paul is given by Camden Choir at St Mary’s Primrose Hill, also Mar 21 (camdenchoir.london).

• Two leading elite choirs go head to head, Mar 26: the venerable Tallis Scholars singing Gabrieli and Guerrero at Milton Court (barbican.org.uk), while the sparkling I Fagiolini sing Victoria at Kings Place (kingsplace.co.uk).

And two elite pianists sit side by side at Wigmore Hall, Mar 23, when Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy – partners in life as well as music – play works for four hands by Schubert and Beethoven. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• If you don’t know the music of American composer Lowell Liebermann, it’s lyrical, accessible, and delivers substance without frightening horses. All of which commends the European premiere of his new Flute Concerto, given by the LSO at the Barbican, Mar 26, with Gareth Davies as soloist. barbican.org.uk

And talking of Americans… in a backstreet of Nine Elms, under the shadow of the sinister fortress that’s the American Embassy, there’s a decidedly more welcoming building called World Heartbeat that runs as an academy-cum-concert space with a recital series. On Mar 20 it has pianist Cyril Ibrahim playing Chopin. Worth exploring. worldheartbeat.org