Ethel Smyth’s Der Wald has gone down in history as the first opera written by a woman to be performed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera (the second was Kaija Saariaho’s L’amour de loin, which wasn’t staged until 113 years later in 2016). It’s fair to say that no opera has been so regularly referenced without anyone ever having heard it – until now.

Enter John Andrews, a veritable paladin on a white charger when it comes to out-of-the-way English repertoire. Thanks to such ardent advocacy, we now have the opportunity to hear it in a finely engineered recording and with an excellent cast. So, is it any good? The answer is a resounding yes!

Der Wald was Smyth’s second opera, written to a libretto by Henry Bennet Brewster, a man described by the composer as “half English, half American, born and bred in France, and domiciled in Italy”. Although he was a married man, H.B. promptly fell in love with the tweedy Ethel, and that despite her lifelong preference for women. Perhaps that is why a certain...