Pirates of Penzance

The Pirates of Penzance is a musical, a comedy, and a romance. It is also known as “The Slave of Duty”. Arthur Sullivan wrote the music for the play with the help of W. S. Gilbert working on vocals.

The musical was first performed December 31, 1879 at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York. It premiered in London on April 3, 1880, in the Opera Comique. They ran a total of 363 performances at the Opera Comique.

A general synopsis is that a young man named Frederic is apprenticed to a pirate. His father planned to apprentice him to a pilot, but by the mistake of his nurse, Ruth, he ends up apprenticed to a band of pirates known as the Pirates, until his 21st birthday.

Richard Temple as Pirate King in
the first production of The Pirates of Penzance
at the Opéra Comique, London.
Engraving by M. Stretch from
The Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News,
June 26th 1880

He turns 21 and ventures off on land, planning to kill the pirates if he sees them again, because that's what any respectable gentlemen would do. He sees a group of young maidens when he comes ashore, and sneaks up on them. He falls in love with one of them, Mabel. The pirates sneak up and say that are going to marry all the girls. The girls’ father, the Major General, gets there and tells the pirates to leave his daughters because he is an Orphan and he has no family. The pirates, having a weak spot for orphans, give up and let them go.

Later, at the house of the Major General, the Major General is feeling guilty about lying to the pirates about being an orphan. The police men show up and offer to arrest the pirates. The girls are happy about this and tell them to go and do it.

Frederic sits in the garden alone. Ruth and the Pirate King sneak up on him and tell him that he is still one of them, because he was born on the 29th of February in leap year, and so according to birthdays he's only 5. Frederic tells Mabel, and she pleads for himself to stay, but he leaves, being bound by his sense of duty.

Frederic tells the pirates that the Major General was lying about being an orphan, and they plot to kill him. They go sneaking up to kill him. The pirates leap out to attack, and the police defend the Major General. There is a scuffle and the police eventually win. The police get ready to kill the pirates, but Ruth pleads with them and tells them that the pirates are all “Nobleman who have gone wrong.” The Major General is impressed, and he forgives them. All is forgotten, and Mabel and Frederic are reunited, and the Major General marries his daughters to the Noble Pirates.

As you can see it is a truly hilarious and ridiculously romantic work of art. I liked it because it had a bit of a Pirates of the Caribbean feel to it. The pirates in both stories are tricksters and have ridiculous senses of humor.

Sources:

• "The Pirates of Penzance." Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Penzance
• The Pirates of Penzance. Dir. Wilford Leach. By Wilford Leach and William Elliott. Prod. Joseph Papp. Perf. Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, and Linda Ronstadt. Universal Pictures, 1983.
• Sullivan, Arthur Seymour, and Wilford Schwenck Gilbert. The Pirates of Penzance. New York: A.W. Tams Music Library, n.d. N. pag. Print.
• "The Pirates of Penzance by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan." Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, http://gsarchive.net/pirates/html/

By Aurora J. A. Pass