The Wreckers

Composer: Dame Ethel Smyth
Librettist: Henry Brewster
Company: Houston Grand Opera

Synopsis

The Wreckers is an opera in three acts, composed by Dame Ethel Smyth to a libretto in French by Henry Brewster. After spending considerable energy in trying to get the work performed in French, the first performance took place in a German translation by John Bernhoff, under the title of Strandrecht, at the Neues Theater, Leipzig on 11 November 1906. Smyth persisted in her attempts to see it staged elsewhere, but it was not until the conductor Thomas Beecham championed the work that a complete, staged performance was achieved in England in 1909 with funding support from her friend Mary Dodge.