30 December: Pirates of Penzance

On this date in 1879 the first performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance took place in Paignton, England.

1. The Pirates of Penzance was the only Gilbert and Sullivan opera to have its official premiere in the United States, on 31 December 1879. So why, you might ask, was there a performance in Devon the previous day? It was to ensure copyright was in place before unauthorised performances could take place in America. The lack of a firm copyright had already cost Gilbert and Sullivan dearly as people in America had already seen unauthorised productions of HMS Pinafore, so didn’t go and see the authorised one.
2. Audiences in London had to wait a few months before the show’s London premiere, which took place 3rd April 1880 at the Opera Comique. It ran for a total of 363 performances.
3. Because the show had three different premieres, there are more variations in the early libretto and score of The Pirates of Penzance than in other Gilbert and Sullivan works. In fact, Gilbert continued to make changes to it right up until the 1908 Savoy revival.
4. The show was based on real pirates based in Cornwall in the 18^th century. By the time the opera was written, Penzance was a respectable seaside town, but that hadn’t always been the case. In the 18^th century there was something called Barbary Piracy in which pirates would come ashore, capture people and sell them as slaves. One of the worst raids took place just off Penzance and 60 residents were captured.
5. The plot. (spoiler alert). The hero of the tale is Frederic, who is so conscientious that he’s also called The Slave of Duty. He ended up with the pirates because of a misunderstanding on the part of his hard of hearing nurse, Ruth, who when told by her boss to apprentice the lad to a pilot (in those days, someone who guided a ship in and out of harbours) she thought he’d said pirate. So Frederic is indentured to the pirates until his 21^st birthday. Frederic can’t wait to leave them, go ashore and get married. When he reaches 21, he goes ashore to look for a wife. Most of the girls in the town aren’t interested, because of his pirate connections, except for Mabel, with whom he falls in love. The pirates show up and capture the rest of the women, but then their father arrives (the Major General from the famous song) and begs the pirates to release his daughters on the grounds that he is an orphan and will be all alone without them. He is taking advantage of what he has heard of these particular pirates, who, being orphans themselves, show mercy to other orphans and let them go.
6. In Act II the police arrive to arrest the pirates but are discouraged when the women praise them for facing certain death. They are led by Frederic, who, now he’s 21, and no longer a pirate, his duty is now to exterminate them. When they encounter Ruth and the Pirate King, Ruth drops a bombshell. Frederic’s birthday is 29 February, a date which only occurs every four years – so he is officially just five years old and must remain with the pirates until he’s had 21 birthdays, ie until he’s in his eighties. The police and pirates fight. The pirates are winning and capture the Major General who pleads with them to spare his life "in Queen Victoria's name". The pirates are surprisingly loyal to the Queen and do so. Ruth appears and drops another bombshell – that the orphaned pirates are actually "all noblemen who have gone wrong". Hence all is forgiven and the Major General is perfectly happy for his daughters to marry them.
7. The Major General’s song is one of the best known and most parodied of Gilbert and Sullivan’s songs. For example, in 2010, comedian Ron Butler released a YouTube pastiche of the song in character as President Obama which was viewed 1,750,000 times. It’s often used in films where a character is in a school play, or has to perform an audition piece. The character of Major-General Stanley was widely taken by many to be a caricature of the popular general Sir Garnet Wolseley. Others insisted it was another general, Henry Turner, uncle of Gilbert's wife, whom Gilbert disliked. Wolesley, however, was happy to believe it was based on him, and would sing the song at parties.
8. In the movie Pretty Woman, Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere, covers a gaffe by prostitute Vivian Ward, played by Julia Roberts, who has just been to her first opera, La Traviata, and says it was so good she almost "peed her pants". Lewis insists she’d actually said that she liked it better than The Pirates of Penzance.
9. The arms granted to the municipal borough of Penzance in 1934 contain a pirate wearing the costume used in the play. Penzance once had a rugby team called the Penzance Pirates, now known as the Cornish Pirates.
10. Like many leap year babies, Frederic celebrated his birthday on 1 March in non-leap years. Hence the action is set on 1 March – but which year? It’s stated in the show that Frederic’s proper 21^st birthday wouldn’t be until 1940, so it should be possible to work it out. What we don’t know, however, is whether Gilbert and Sullivan were aware of an anomaly in the Leap year system, whereby the turn of a century, in this case 1900, which should be a leap year, isn’t. Hence the year could have been either 1873 or 1877.

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