The most curious thing about Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers – a “neglected” opera, rescued from the shadows for this summer’s Glyndebourne festival – is its morality. Which is distinctly skewed.
The curtain rises on an isolated coastal community who, led by their local pastor, seem to be devout. The opening chorus is a testament to faith, with rousing Alleluias. But you then discover that these people live by luring passing ships onto the rocks where they get wrecked, their crews drowned and their cargoes plundered. All apparently with the approval of almighty God – or the community’s idea of God as an Old Testament avenger who protects his own and sanctions the casual destruction of everyone else.
