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,
Brian Sibley and "Gormenghast" for Radio 4, for which he received a Sony Radio Award in 1985. He returned to Peake's writings in 2011 with "The History of Titus Groan", a cycle of six one-hour plays for BBC Radio 4's 'Classic Serial' based on "Titus Groan", "Gormenghast", "Titus Alone" and Maeve Gilmore's "Titus Awakes". Produced Jeremy Mortimer, the series began transmission on Sunday 10 July with a cast headed by David Warner, Luke Treadaway and Miranda Richardson and won the BBC Audio Drama Award 2012 for Best Adaptation. Other major radio dramatisations by Sibley include: John Bunyan's "The Pilgrim's Progress"; Tolkien's "Tales