Offer,Smyth: The Wreckers

Anne-Marie Owens (Thirza), Justin Lavender (Mark), Peter Sidhom (Pascoe), David Wilson-Johnson (Lawrence), Judith Howarth (Avis), Anthony Roden (Tallan), Brian Bannatyne-Scott (Harvey/A Man), Annemarie Sand (Jack)

Huddersfield Choral Society, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Odaline de la Martinez

Smyth shows a keen instinct for musical drama, while her score…exudes energy and momentum…The cast here give a good account of their roles, with Justin Lavender and Anne-Marie Owens impassioned... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2018, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 28th Mar 2018
Catalogue No: RO004
Label: Retrospect Opera

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Smyth: The Wreckers

Anne-Marie Owens (Thirza), Justin Lavender (Mark), Peter Sidhom (Pascoe), David Wilson-Johnson (Lawrence), Judith Howarth (Avis), Anthony Roden (Tallan), Brian Bannatyne-Scott (Harvey/A Man), Annemarie Sand (Jack)
Huddersfield Choral Society, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Odaline de la Martinez

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Arguably the greatest of Smyth’s six operas, The Wreckers (1902–4) was certainly her most ambitious and monumental. Looking back on her career in 1944, Sir Thomas Beecham declared that “Undoubtedly her masterpiece is The Wreckers, which remains one of the three or four English operas of real musical merit and vitality written during the past forty years”. This 2-CD Digipak is a reissue of Odaline de la Martinez’s acclaimed live recording of the 1994 BBC Proms performance, originally released on Conifer Classics. It features new album artwork as well as an original Foreword.

Reviews

July 2018

Smyth shows a keen instinct for musical drama, while her score…exudes energy and momentum…The cast here give a good account of their roles, with Justin Lavender and Anne-Marie Owens impassioned as the adulterous lovers…while Odaline de la Martinez brings flair and commitment to realising the regularly memorable score. Good sound.

July 2018

The Wreckers is a music-drama which for the most part steers its own courageous course…The orchestral writing is especially fine, as the present performance eloquently confirms…This 1994 performance confirms its revivability.

June 2018

I was especially impressed with Smyth's choral and orchestral imagination, convincingly retailed by the zesty Huddersfield Choral Society and by Martinez's buoyant direction, which shines through undimmed. Of the principals, the two main women - Anne-Marie Owens as the self-sacrificing heroine and Judith Howarth as a vengeful, predatory adolescent stand out. The Wreckers remains required listening. It is good to welcome it back.

Offer,Smyth: The Wreckers

2 CDs

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