Gormenghast (opera) Gormenghast (opera) Gormenghast is an opera in three acts composed by Irmin Schmidt to an English-language libretto by Duncan Fallowell, based on Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast Trilogy". It premiered at the Opernhaus Wuppertal on 15 November 1998. Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast Trilogy", on which the opera is based, is a Gothic tale recounting the rise of the evil Steerpike from a kitchen boy in Gormenghast castle to total domination of the castle and its aristocratic inhabitants. Benjamin Britten had contemplated composing an opera based on the trilogy in the 1950s, but then changed his mind. Irmin Schmidt and his librettist Duncan Fallowell,
Mervyn Peake Man", by British band The Cure, is inspired by events in "Gormenghast," and the song "Lady Fuchsia" by another British band, Strawbs, is also based on events in the novels. Peake's play "The Cave", which dates from the mid-1950s, was given a first public reading at the Blue Elephant Theatre in Camberwell (London) in 2009, and had its world premiere in the same theatre, directed by Aaron Paterson, on 19 October 2010. In 2011 Brian Sibley adapted the story again, this time as six one-hour episodes broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as the Classic Serial starting on 10 July 2011.