It is rare that you get to review an opera written by a woman who identified as at least bisexual (as she did have one relationship with a man), but mostly was interested in other women.  The composer fell for Virginia Woolf, she even had a crush on Emily Pankhurst ( the famous English suffragist), and she spent time in prison for her beliefs and for throwing bricks through the homes of UK cabinet ministers.  So this is not your average late 19th century/early 20th century composer.

Dame Ethel Smyth’s third opera, The Wreckers, is having something of a revival on both sides of the Atlantic, with the original French version of the opera opening Glyndebourne this year, including a Proms concert also  devoted to a concert version of the same opera from the same cast, and now we have HGO’s magnificent English version of the opera which opened on October 28 and is set for another four performances closing on November 11.

The opera had its premiere in 1906 in Leipzig with an inferior German translation, and although it had 16 curtain calls at its first performance and was hailed as success, Smyth was not happy with the cuts that she had to endure just to get it staged. So when the conductor Richard Hagel refused to restore the score to its original, she threw a diva fit and took all the music so that the opera could not be performed again at that venue.

Despite the incident, Smyth was still the first woman to have an opera performed at both the Met and Covent Garden ( and in the case of the Met, she was the only woman to have an opera performed there until 2016!), both a testament to her fortitude and determination in terms of breaking through the double-glazed ceiling of the opera world.

The program notes on Smyth were a joy to read, and from my own reading of the notes and research it is clear with hindsight that her antics, her feminist status, and her cigar-smoking tweed suits and bolshie behavior got in the way of her music.  So as she stated that this was “the work by which I stand or fall,” this work has been the focus of the revival of her music, but there are five other operas too and an astonishing amount of other compositions too.

So let’s first review the basics of the plot.  The setting is a remote Cornish village which is clearly not exactly self-sustaining economically speaking unless it has some source of external income.

In current times that might be provided by some kind of government program, but back in 19th century England that needed to come from somewhere else, and in much of rural Cornwall that was provided by shipwrecks that were plundered when they ran aground.  To safeguard the plunderers any survivors were murdered, and it was only in the early 20th century, when the government decided to make monetary awards for any survivors, did that practice cease.

Against this background, then, we see a small Cornish village where someone appears to be lighting a warning fire on the cliffs to warn ships away and thereby is depriving the village of their income.  The plot centers on four individuals: Pascoe, a vicar (Reginald Smith Jr), his wife Thirza (Sasha Cooke), Mark, a handsome local lad (Norman Reinhardt) and Avis, the daughter of the lighthouse keeper (Mané Galoyan).

Pascoe is a holier than thou fellow who clearly recognizes the importance of the wrecks to the local community and therefore deduces that the wrecks must be provided by God, and therefore any dearth of wrecks must be punishment for some kind of sin going on in the community.   He is married to the much younger Thirza who is principled and decides she can no longer go to a church that indirectly countenances the plundering and murders.

Mark and Avis are clearly a relationship gone bad, and Mark has some really juicy lines philosophizing about men, but is clearly quite chill when it comes to dealing with Avis, who appears to have vast resources of nervous energy and is made out to be the local conspiracy theorist.  No spoiler alerts here thank you, so I’m not going to say anything more than Pascoe and Thirza’s marriage is not going too well and that Avis still has a big old crush on Mark.

It is easy to see why the setting for this opera inspired Smyth.  A small community where fitting in is important to your survival, an ethical problem that is brushed under the rug by the authorities, which in this instance effectively means the Church, and a judicial system that is wholly aligned with the wishes and economics needs of the community and will become mob-like to protect itself from anyone who questions what is going on.

In so many ways the setting is analogous to her own life and struggles.  It is also striking, for example, that the lead female role goes to a mezzo rather than a soprano, and also that the lead male role is that of a baritone rather than a tenor.

The real key to the opera here though is the ethical dramatic tension which Smyth sets up in Act One, where the fate of the community may hinge on finding and punishing the traitor who is doing the right thing: warning the ships away from the wreckers.  Act Two then advanced whodunnit and in Act Three there is Community Court which is to decide who is responsible and then exact appropriate punishment, and to my mind in these two Acts the score are really a revelation.

The musical highlight of the whole opera was the entr’acte between Acts Two and Three, dripping with elements of Ravel, Wagner and even Strauss, all with a sprinkling of Vaughan-Williams thrown in as well.  The audience was spellbound.

Of course Benjamin Britten composed Peter Grimes several decades later, but somehow you have to wonder whether Britten had seen The Wreckers and unconsciously took some of the compositional devices which Smyth puts into the entr’acte into the Grimes interludes. And yes, it was that good!

The HGO Orchestra conducted by Patrick Summers did a masterful job and the singing was mostly exceptional, with my only comment being that Reinhardt, to my ears at least, seemed to have some pitch problems in Act One. These all disappeared as soon as he had his wonderful acapella Cornish folk tune type aria in Act 2.  The chorus seemed to also have a bit of a wobbly start in places, but soon settled into the ambitious choral score and then executed flawlessly.

The monochrome sets with panoramic gray evening sky in Act 1 were so stunning I  wanted to hop on a plane the next day.  So kudos to the set and costume designer, Christopher Oram.

The standing ovation at the end of the performance was thoroughly deserved. This is definitely an opera worth seeing.

Photos: Michael D. Bishop Photography