Smyth: Der Wald
Natalya Romaniw, Claire Barnett-Jones, Robert Murray et al; BBC Singers; BBC Symphony Orchestra/John Andrews
Resonus RES10324 66:21 mins
This is the first recording of Ethel Smyth’s second opera – historically an important piece, written at a time when very few women composed operas, let alone had them performed.
Der Wald (The Forest) was premiered in Berlin in April 1901, then seen at Covent Garden (July 1902) and the Met in New York (March 1903).
Smyth herself said that The Wreckers (premiered in 1906) – revived with conspicuous success by both Glyndebourne and Houston Grand Opera in 2022 – was ‘the work by which I stand or fall’.
Der Wald may not be such an outstanding piece, but it is well worth getting to know. While Harry Brewster’s somewhat naïve libretto holds it back, Smyth’s score shows an impressive range of skills.
Written in a late-Romantic idiom that inevitably owes something to Wagner – especially in terms of the demanding vocal writing of the three central roles – its also reminds us of Smyth’s devotion to Brahms (the composer, not the man, whom she disliked).
The narrative concerns the jealous love (lust) of the highborn witch Iolanthe, which destroys peasant girl Röschen and woodcutter Heinrich, who perish in a kind of Liebestod – he stabbed by Iolanthe’s henchmen, she falling lifeless on his body.
Conductor John Andrews rescues another lost English opera from oblivion and leads an excellent performance: it would be difficult to imagine finer accounts of the central roles than those given here by Natalya Romaniw (Röschen), Robert Murray (Heinrich), Claire Barnett-Jones (Iolanthe) and Andrew Shore (Pedlar), while the invaluable BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra provide ideal support. George Hall