Ethel Smyth seems to have been missed by the collective national consciousness, despite being made a Dame and having a statue in Woking. An early suffragette, an openly bisexual woman (although favouring lesbian relationships), and an accomplished composer and musician, she isn’t as celebrated as I would have expected. The only real depiction of her in popular culture is Smyth’s relationship with Violet Gordon-Woodhouse, satirically detailed in Roger Scruton’s 2005 opera, Violet.
Time to right that omission, I believe.
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