Retrospect Opera is pleased to announce the release of its debut recording, the first complete recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s most popular opera, The Boatswain’s Mate, conducted by Smyth specialist Odaline de la Martinez. The Boatswain’s Mate proved – of all the early twentieth-century British operas making use of folk music to depict something of realistic rural life – the most popular. Smyth’s suffragette anthem, The March of the Women, is significantly incorporated into the overture, and nursery rhymes and folk tunes are utilised in the main body of the work.

Cast:
- Mrs Waters: Nadine Benjamin
- Harry Benn: Edward Lee
- Ned Travers: Jeremy Huw Williams
- Policeman: Simon Wilding
- Mary Ann: Rebecca Louise Dale
- The Man: Ted Schmitz
- Chorus: Mark Nathan

Also includes:
- extracts from The Boatswain’s Mate (recorded in 1916), conducted by Ethel Smyth, with Rosina Buckman, Frederick Ranalow, and Courtice Pounds
- overture to The Wreckers (recorded in 1930), conducted by Ethel Smyth

The 32-page booklet includes the full libretto, and essays by Odaline de la Martinez, Christopher Wiley, and David Chandler.