We are apt to forget that after 216 consecutive performances of The Immortal Hour in 1922 and 1923, Rutland Boughton was hailed as the most significant British operatic composer of his generation. His vision of a cycle of Arthurian music dramas took form at a series of Glastonbury Festivals beginning in 1914 with the first performance of The Immortal Hour as its centrepiece. Boughton’s cycle was not completed until 1945, by which time the Glastonbury Festivals were a memory, shrouded in a mixture of scandal and political notoriety. Nevertheless, he remained loyal to his operatic convictions and, besides the cycle, wrote a number of other operas, some them on Arthurian themes.

The Queen of Cornwall dates from 1924, by which time Boughton had moved on to a full and productive assimilation of Wagner’s instrumental conception of opera and flexible vocal declamation. His understanding of the process, clothed in gorgeous orchestration, also enabled him to incorporate his set pieces (using additional Hardy poems) without disrupting the continuum of the two acts; nor does his original extensive and fertile use of the chorus as a Greek-style choral narrator or as accompaniment to the soloists seem stilted.

Heather Shipp as the conflicted Queen Iseult brings her music alive, especially in Act 1, with her long, intense monologue and “aria” (“I dream that the dearest I ever knew”), as does Sir Tristram, sung by Jacques Imbrailo. Their duet “Yes, Love, true is it sadness suits me best” is a poignant gem but perhaps most heart-rending is Iseult of Brittany’s lament “Indulge no more” sung splendidly here by Joan Rodgers. This operatic music of the 1920s may have its roots in the late 19th century but when it is performed with such fervour and control as it is here (for which Ronald Corp should be applauded), the “anachronism” matters not a jot. For me this opera was quite a revelation and it makes one wonder what other treasures of Boughton await rediscovery.