Prom 13: Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers (24.07.22)

[seabright]

... In 1994 it was a concert performance in English, and this one is semi-staged in French ...

I have a friend who went to hear 'The Wreckers' on Sunday and he comments that "I consider Glyndebourne's decision to sing it in the original French to be somewhat eccentric, considering it was first performed in Leipzig in a German translation and is best known in English speaking lands in English. After all, it's set in Cornwall!" ... Eccentric indeed!

[Master Jacques]

I have a friend who went to hear 'The Wreckers' on Sunday and he comments that "I consider Glyndebourne's decision to sing it in the original French to be somewhat eccentric, considering it was first performed in Leipzig in a German translation and is best known in English speaking lands in English. After all, it's set in Cornwall!" ... Eccentric indeed!

It's no excuse, I agree, but the extra half-hour or so of music cut by the composer before the Leipzig premiere (but which Glyndebourne decided in their wisdom to reinstate) only had French and German texts. That, at least, was their lame excuse for performing the opera in a language foreign to everyone in a cast comprising British, American and Spanish-speaking singers.