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PIRATES OF PENZANCE or THE SLAVE OF DUTY By Gilbert and Sullivan Libretto by W. S. Gilbert, Music
by Sir Arthur Sullivan Composed 1879 Premiere: 31 December 1879, New
fifth Avenue Theatre, New York SYNOPSIS When Frederic was yet a little boy, his nurse (Ruth) was
told to apprentice him to become a pilot. She heard the word incorrectly and
apprenticed him to a band of pirates, remaining with them herself
as a maid-of-all-work. Although Frederic loathed the trade to which he had
thus been bound, he dutifully served; and, as the curtain rises, his
indentures are almost up and he is preparing to leave the band and devote
himself to the extermination of piracy. He urges the pirates to join him in embracing a more lawful
calling, but they refuse. Ruth, however, wishes to become his wife. Having
seen but few women he does not know whether she is really as pretty as she
says she is; but he finally consents to take her. Just then a group of girls, all the wards of Major-General
Stanley, happen upon the scene. Frederic sees their beauty—and
Ruth’s plainness—and renounces her. Of these girls, Mabel takes a particular interest in Frederic, and he in
her. The other girls are seized by the pirates and threatened with immediate
marriage. When the Major-General arrives, he can dissuade the pirates only by
a ruse: he tells them that he is an orphan, and so works upon their
sympathies that they let him and his wards go free. During the ensuing days and nights, however, this lie
troubles the Major-General’s conscience: he sits brooding over it at
night in a Gothic ruin. He is consoled by his wards’ sympathy and
Frederic’s plan of immediately leading a band of police against the
pirates. Meanwhile the Pirate King and Ruth appear at the window
and beckon Frederic: they have discovered that his indentures were to run
until his twenty-first birthday, and — as he was born on February 29
— he has really had as yet only five birthdays. Obeying the dictates of
his strong sense of duty, he immediately rejoins the pirates. He tells them
of the deception that has been practiced upon them, and they seize and bind
the Major-General. But the police come to the rescue and charge the pirates
to yield, “in Queen Victoria’s name”. This they do. Ruth
explains, however, that these men who appear to be lawless pirates are really
all “noblemen who have gone wrong”, and they are pardoned and
permitted to marry the Major-General’s wards. |
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