Gormenghast (opera)
| Gormenghast | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Irmin Schmidt | |
| Librettist | Duncan Fallowell |
| Language | English |
| Based on | Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy |
| Premiere | 15 November 1998 Opernhaus Wuppertal |
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, the first to base on opera on the work, began working on it in the early 1990s after receiving a commission from the Wuppertaler Bühnen. Schmidt had studied composition with and Ligeti in the 1950s. As an avant-garde rock musician, he founded the rock band Can in 1968 and performed with them as its keyboardist for ten years. Fallowell, who had written the lyrics to two of Schmidt's albums, Musk at Dusk (1987) and Impossible Holidays (1991), wrote the first draft of the libretto while he was living in Saint Petersburg.
Schmidt calls Gormenghast a "fantasy opera"', saying that "Gormenghast is, both in spirit and form, grand opera. But elements and characteristics of musical, the rock concert, and modern dance theatre play equally important roles within it". At a meeting of the UK's Mervyn Peake Society in 1995, Schmidt played three excerpts from the opera-in-progress, recorded on audio cassette—the music for the castle kitchen scene, a duet sung by the twins Cora and Clarice, and Steerpike's drunken song as he climbs to the top of the castle. The music for the castle kitchen had been recorded in his own kitchen using saucepans, plates, spoons, and forks as the percussion. At the meeting he said that writing Gormenghast had been a revelation for him, "I'm no longer an avant-garde artist, out to shock. I want people to enjoy my music."
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