33^rd Festival Season - 2011

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE or The Slave of Duty

Music by Arthur Sullivan

Libretto by William Gilbert

Because his hard-of-hearing nursemaid Ruth misunderstood his father's request that his son become an apprentice to a pilot, Frederic has spent his childhood years as apprentice to a pirate. He will soon come of age and, although he dearly loves his shipmates, finds their profession atrocious and will devote his adult life to their extermination. Although he has never seen a woman other than Ruth, he has a hard time believing that he couldn't do better with someone 30 years younger. He finds that someone in Mabel, the daughter of Major General Stanley. Just as Frederic is about to lead a mission to bring down the pirates, it is revealed that, because he was born on February 29, he is really only five years old and must remain loyal to the pirates, much to the dismay of Mabel, whose father is under siege by the pirate crew. Only when the local police request that the pirates yield in the name of Queen Victoria do we learn the true background of the swashbucklers.