Helicopter rescues a Glyndebourne opera

At noon on Tuesday, Rodrigo Porras Garulo who sings the role of Marc in Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers told his Glyndebourne colleagues that his voice was, well, wrecked.

A call was put out for his understudy Adam Gilbert. Nobody else knows the little-performed opera.

But it turned out Gilbert was having a day off, taking his son to watch the seals at Cardigan Island, off the Welsh coast, some 300 miles away.

And the trains were on strike.

What to do?

Glyndebourne has a network of rich friends, some of whom travel by helicopter.

Garulo sang the first act, Gilbert took over the second.

‘I’ve never been in a helicopter before,’ he told BBC Wales.

Glyndebourne said: ‘On 21 June the role of Marc in Acts II and III was walked on stage by Rodrigo Porras Garulo and sung from the side by Adam Gilbert.’