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 is 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.

This production has been captured in 4K.

Recorded live at Glyndebourne Opera House, Festival 2022.