The Pirates of Penzance

Wellington G & S Light Opera present The Pirates of Penzance.

Building on its triumphant 2011 double bill production of Trial by Jury and HMS Pinafore, Wellington G&S Light Opera returns to The Royal Wanganui Opera House to present Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera The Pirates of Penzance in a fully staged touring production directed by Gillian Jerome and accompanied by 28 players from the Vector Wellington Orchestra conducted by VWO concertmaster Matthew Ross.

Derek Miller returns as the Pirate King and Colin Eade as Major General Stanley, in this rollicking production of Gilbert’s farce. The British Establishment is once again the butt of Gilbert’s wit with aristocratic pirates, timid police and a blustering army Major-General with his bevy of daughters. Gillian Jerome’s production mines the rich veins of Gilbert’s humour whilst retaining the natural comic tensions between roles and behaviours.

Sullivan’s memorable music sparkles with an eclectic range of styles including parodies in the style of popular works by Verdi and contemporaries and this is brought vividly to life by Matthew Ross, using Sullivan’s full orchestration.

Finish time: approx 10.00pm.
No children under 3 please.

Block booking of 5 or more over any concessions 10% discount available from the Box Office.

In The Pirates of Penzance, Frederic was as a child apprenticed to a band of tenderhearted, orphaned aristocratic pirates by his nurse, who being hard of hearing, had mistaken her master's instructions to apprentice the boy to a pilot. Frederic, upon completing his 21st year, rejoices that he has fulfilled his indentures and is now free to return to respectable society. But it turns out that he was born on February 29 in leap year, and he remains apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday. By the end of the opera, the pirates, a Major General who knows nothing of military strategy, his large family of beautiful but unwed daughters, and a timid constabulary all contribute to a cacophony that can be silenced only by reverence for Queen Victoria's name.

Gilbert takes British institutions down a peg with his inimitable wit whilst Sullivan uses a wide range of musical styles to complement the action, sending up the melodrama of other operatic works without plagiarising them, in a very tuneful and appealing way.