The Pirates Of Penzance

An 1890 poster for the light opera, portraying the Major-General.

The Pirates of Penzance, or "The Slave of Duty", is one of the most enduringly popular of Gilbert and Sullivan's many comic operas. It is known for its many memorable songs, its witty dialog and lyrics, its clever plot, and its caricatures.

Among the many famous songs from this opera are Mabel's brilliant coloratura song "Poor Wand'ring One", the Police Chief's song "A Policeman's Lot is Not a Happy One", the Pirate King's song:

and, perhaps most famous of all, the Major General's song:

The latter is perhaps the best known of Gilbert and Sullivan's "patter songs"—songs with extremely rapid-fire delivery of nonsensical lyrics. It has been adapted and parodied many times, most notably in Tom Lehrer's song "The Elements".

Gilbert and Sullivan's characters were often portrayed in exaggerated and outlandish ways, as in the officiousness of Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore, or the hubris of Pooh-Bah in The Mikado. Pirates of Penzance is no exception: Frederic, the central character, is fanatically devoted to what he sees as his "sense of duty", carrying it to ridiculous extremes. Also, the band of pirates are actually very moral people who have taken up comical piracy as a form of social protest. They are really very soft-hearted, and burst into tears at the mention of orphans.

The story is about Frederic, mistakenly apprenticed to a band of self-styled pirates until he turns 21. He abhors his trade, but stays with them because of his sense of duty. He is now 21 and is about to leave them. But the pirate king reminds him that he was born on February 29 in a leap year, and his contract states that he is apprenticed until his 21st birthday, not his 21st year.

Trivia[edit]

• Penzance is a small coastal resort town in the southwest corner of England. "Pirates of Penzance" sounds to a Briton the way "Pirates of Myrtle Beach" might sound to an American.
• Since Frederic says his actual 21st birthday will occur in 1940, the opera must have been set on February 28 or March 1 of 1873. But this requires knowledge of the fact that 1900 would not be a leap year, which may not have been widely known at the time, and may not have been known to Gilbert and Sullivan. They may have believed that they were setting the action in 1877. The first performance was in December 1879.
• The melody of the second section of the song "With Catlike Tread" (sung while the pirates are plotting to kill the major general) was adapted in 1915 into the popular song "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here", perhaps best known as having been, for a while, the theme song of the United States Republican Party.
• There are a number of witty plays on words. Frederic was mistakenly apprenticed as a "pirate" because his nurserymaid confused the word with "pilot". There is also a play on "often" and "orphan", though it doesn't work very well with American pronunciation.
• The concept of a "plug" (promotion of one work from within another work) is not a 20th century invention. There is a plug for H.M.S. Pinafore in the Major General's song.
• Gilbert and Sullivan were in something of a tricky political situation with Queen Victoria, since they had made disparaging comments about her cabinet ministers, and about the House of Lords, in their earlier opera H.M.S. Pinafore. They put an artful apology into the final scene of Pirates of Penzance. The police, having lost a battle with the pirates, make a last-ditch patriotic appeal -- "We charge you yield, in Queen Victoria's name". The pirates, being caricatures of extremely moral people, surrender -- "We yield at once, with humbled mien, because with all our faults we love our Queen".

Links[edit]

• plot synopsis