The Wreckers

Would you die for what you believe?

In a remote corner of Cornwall, a God-fearing community lives 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.

This powerful, psychological drama of ‘wrecking, religion and love’ was the pinnacle of Ethel Smyth’s career – a work Sir Thomas Beecham praised as a ‘masterpiece’, admired by Mahler. With its sweeping musical soundscapes, passionate central love story, and radical interrogation of fear, hypocrisy and mob violence, it’s not only the missing link in the history of English opera – an ancestor to Britten’s Peter Grimes – but a compelling piece of theatre, whose heroine is a mirror of her fascinating, unorthodox creator.

Directed by Melly Still, this new production will be the first major, professional staging of our lifetime, and the first opportunity to hear the opera as Smyth intended, with its original French libretto. Glyndebourne’s music director Robin Ticciati conducts.

A new production for Festival 2022. Sung in French with English supertitles

Creative team

Conductor
 Robin Ticciati

Director
Melly Still

Designer
Ana Inés Jabares-Pita

Lighting Designer
Malcolm Rippeth

Video Designer
Akhila Krishnan

Choreographer
Mike Ashcroft

London Philharmonic Orchestra

The Glyndebourne Chorus

Cast includes

Pascoe
Markus Brück

Thirza
Clémentine Margaine

Lawrence
James Rutherford

Mark
Rodrigo Porras Garulo

Avis
Lauren Fagan

Harvey
Donovan Singletary

Tallan
Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts

Jack
Marta Fontanals-Simmons