Sarah Angliss’s new opera Giant, which premiered at this summer’s Aldeburgh International Festival, is a haunting exploration of medical ethics and the concept of consent—a subject deeply resonant in our time. The opera delves into the life of Charles Byrne, the so-called “Irish Giant” of the 18th century, who reportedly stood over 7 feet tall (2.31 m), with some accounts claiming he was even taller.
At the heart of Giant is Byrne’s fraught relationship with the surgeon John Hunter, a man who offered friendship and medical assistance—but with deeply troubling motives. Hunter’s interest in Byrne was not only scientific; he sought to acquire Byrne’s body after his death for dissection, a prospect the young man found terrifying. Byrne made explicit efforts to avoid this fate, attempting to ensure his burial at sea. Yet Hunter ultimately obtained his body, an act that speaks volumes about the imbalance of power and the absence of consent.
The opera examines the chilling intersection of scientific ambition and human dignity. It moves between two worlds: the curiosity shows—dubiously labeled “freak shows”—where Byrne earned his living, and Hunter’s anatomical laboratory, where bodies were routinely dissected in the name of knowledge. While Hunter offered relief for Byrne’s physical ailments, the offer was laden with conditions. Byrne’s instincts proved right: the help came at the cost of his autonomy.
This theme—how medical advancement has so often relied on the exploitation of vulnerable bodies—echoes another unsettling chapter in medical history. Modern gynecology, for instance, owes many of its foundational practices to Dr. J. Marion Sims, who established the first hospital for women in the United States and pioneered several surgical techniques. But his achievements were built on experiments performed on enslaved women—without anesthesia and without consent. These women, considered property, had no legal right to refuse. A statue once erected to honor Sims has since been removed, a public recognition of the unethical foundation of his legacy.
In Giant, Angliss raises difficult but necessary questions: When does the pursuit of scientific knowledge cross a moral line? At what point should a physician’s humanity override the drive for medical progress? And how do we reckon with the achievements of those whose work was made possible by the suffering of others?
By invoking the tragic story of Charles Byrne, Giant forces us to confront the uneasy truths at the root of both historical and modern medicine—truths that remain as urgent today as they were centuries ago.
