Ethel Smyth: The Boatswain's Mate

[piano888]

Just a heads-up that the recording by Retrospect Opera of the complete opera (in Smyth's 'reduced orchestration' version) should be out within a couple of months. The website gives the latest information www.retrospectopera.org.uk. Conducted by Odaline de la Martinez (who better?), with members of the Lontano Ensemble, and Nadine Benjamin, Edward Lee, Jeremy Huw Williams, and others.

[Alan Howe]

I hope it's better than The Wreckers, which to my way of thinking contains some wonderful things amidst oceans (!) of dross.

[piano888]

Ah, well, I saw The Wreckers in Truro in 2006, and enjoyed it very much! I found the music gloriously rich. I also saw Opera North's Peter Grimes the same week, and thought the Cornish production far superior. And I could hear the words, more than I could with the Opera North production.

I like to think you won't be disappointed with The Boatswain's Mate - it was far and away her most popular opera, in her day, which was why she arranged it for a small orchestra, to make it more readily accessible for smaller resources.