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,
Gormenghast (castle) to be inferred as it is not made clear). It is impossible to give an exact layout of the castle, but from various mentions in the text it can be stated in general terms some of what each wing of the castle contains. The top floor of the North Wing contains the Hall of the Bright Carvings, where the curator Rottcodd spends his days sleeping. It has a single window facing north, out of which Rottcodd observes the entire population of the castle returning from Gormenghast Lake after the 'Earling' of Titus as the 77th Earl of Groan. Keda, Titus'