The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse is a chamber opera with words and music by Peter Maxwell Davies. The scenario was inspired by a true story. In December 1900 a lighthouse supply ship called the Hesperus, based in Stromness, Orkney, went on its routine tour of duty to the Flannan Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The lighthouse was empty - all three beds and the table looked as if they had been left in a hurry and the lamp, throughout, was in perfect working order, but the men had disappeared into thin air.