Glyndebourne: Ethel Smyth: The Wreckers

The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Robin Ticciati perform Glyndebourne's staging of Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers.

The Wreckers” is a piece many opera lovers know by name, but one that few have heard, let alone seen. Yet it is an important missing link in the evolution of English music (Britten’s “Peter Grimes” is particularly indebted to it) and also a genuinely compelling work in its own right. With its sweeping musical soundscapes, passionate love story, and unflinching portrait of fear, groupthink and mob mentality, this is an important work of 20th century opera. Set in a remote corner of Cornwall, the opera tells the tale of a God-fearing community living a desperate, precarious existence. Their only hope is the ships that are wrecked on their rocks. But when they start to cause those shipwrecks deliberately, murdering the crew for profit, it tears the villagers apart, setting in motion a tragedy that kills two of their own.

The Glyndebourne Festival 2022 opens with this exciting premiere – not only the first Glyndebourne staging of Ethel Smyth’s “The Wreckers”, but also the first major professional staging since 1939 in the UK. It is also the first time the Festival has staged an opera by a woman – and not just any woman: a bisexual feminist, who was imprisoned for suffragette activism.

Genre Opera
Recording location Glyndebourne Festival
Production year 2022
Duration 159'
Video format 4K/UHD
Production Company Glyndebourne Festival, Maestro Broadcasting
TV Director Jonathan Haswell
Distribution TV EuroArts Music International
Distribution VOD / SVOD EuroArts Music International
English title of music work Ethel Smyth: The Wreckers, an opera in three acts, libretto by Henry Brewster
Orchestra / Band The London Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor Robin Ticciati
Stage Director Melly Still
Choreography by Mike Ashcroft
Light Design Malcolm Rippeth
Soloist Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts (Tallan), Marta Fontanals-Simmon (Jaquet), Donovan Singletary (Harvey), Philip Horst (Pasko), Lauren Fagan (Avi), James Rutherford (Laurent), Karis Tucker (Thurza), Rodrigo Porras Garulo (Marc)