Pirates of Penzance, The, is a popular comic opera by the famous British team of Sir William S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur S. Sullivan. Gilbert wrote the dialogue, and Sullivan composed the music. The comic opera opened on Dec. 30, 1879, and soon became a hit. The show’s full name was The Pirates of Penzance, or, The Slave of Duty. In The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert and Sullivan made fun of the music of several opera composers of the day, including the French composer Charles Gounod and the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi.
The action takes place in the area around Penzance, a town at the southwestern tip of England. The young hero of the story is Frederic. When Frederic was a child, his nurse, Ruth, had accidentally apprenticed him to the Pirate King. The Pirate King heads a group of pirates, who are all orphans and kindly men. Frederic’s term of service is apparently now over. He dedicates himself—out of a sense of duty—to destroying the outlaw pirates who had been his friends. Frederic falls in love with Mabel, one of the daughters of Major-General Stanley. The pirates seek vengeance against Stanley because he prevented them from marrying his other daughters. At the end of the show, the pirates are revealed to be British noblemen. They are thus free to marry Stanley’s daughters, and Frederic and Mabel prepare to wed.
Stanley performs the show’s most famous song, a tongue twister (called a patter song) titled “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General.” Another popular song is Mabel’s “Poor Wand’ring One.” The famous song “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here” is set to the tune of part of the choral number “With Cat-Like Tread.”
See also D’Oyly Carte, Richard ; Gilbert, Sir William Schwenck ; Gilbert and Sullivan ; Sullivan, Sir Arthur Seymour .
