The room is full of ghosts, called out by the foghorn from the depths of the sea

The last of my Christmas presents arrived today: a CD of Peter Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse (1979), recorded at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1994. It's a chamber opera of the mystery of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse. I saw it performed by the Boston Lyric Opera in 2012 and loved it; it's full of sea-hauntings and song. I still long for a recording of that cast, even though I was told at the talkback that it was impossible without infusions of money that nobody had; I gather there's no recording of the work's premiere at the Edinburgh Festival in 1980. I was not disappointed to listen to this version, especially since it gave me one of the original voices in the person of Neil Mackie, who created the role of Sandy. I really miss live opera. This one is made of ghosts replaying like the automated light that flashes the rhythm of its frame-story: it's appropriate to hear it trapped on twenty-seven years of tape. I am telling myself, anyway. We thought they were safely drowned.