[Comic opera, in two acts; text by Gilbert. First produced in England at the Opéra Comique, April 3, 1880.]
PERSONAGES.
Maj.-Gen. Stanley. Pirate King. Samuel, his lieutenant. Frederic, the pirate apprentice. Sergeant of Police. Mabel,
Edith,
Kate,
Isabel, } Gen. Stanley’s daughters. Ruth, a pirate maid of all work.[Pirates, police, etc.]
The scene is laid on the coast of Cornwall; time, the present.
“The Pirates of Penzance” has a local interest from the fact that it was first produced in New York on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1879, under the immediate supervision of both Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Gilbert. When the composer left England he had only finished the second act, and that was without orchestration. After his arrival here he wrote the first act and scored the entire opera. By this performance the profits of the representations in this country were secured. The work was not published until after their return to England.
At the opening of the opera it is disclosed that Frederic, when a boy, in pursuance of his father’s orders, was to have been apprenticed to a pilot until his twenty-first year, but by the mistake of his nurse-maid, Ruth, he was bound out to one of the pirates of Penzance, who were celebrated for their gentleness and never molested orphans because they were orphans themselves. In the first scene the pirates are making merry, as Frederic has reached his majority and is about to leave them and seek some other occupation. Upon the eve of departure Ruth requests him to marry her, and he consents, as he has never seen any other woman, but shortly afterwards he encounters the daughters of General Stanley, falls in love with Mabel, the youngest, and denounces Ruth as a deceiver. The pirates encounter the girls about the same time, and propose to marry them, but when the General arrives and announces that he is an orphan, they relent and allow the girls to go.
The second act opens in the General’s ancient baronial hall, and reveals him surrounded by his daughters, lamenting that he has deceived the pirates by calling himself an orphan. Frederic appears, and bids Mabel farewell, as he is about to lead an expedition for the extermination of the pirates. While he is alone, the Pirate King and Ruth visit him and show him the papers which bound him to them. It is stated in them that he is bound “until his twenty-first birthday,” but as his birthday is the 29th of February, he has had but five. Led by his strong sense of duty, he decides that he will go back to his old associates. Then he tells them of the General’s orphan story, which so enrages them that they swear vengeance. They come by night to carry off the General, but are overpowered by the police and sent to prison, where they confess they are English noblemen. Upon promising to give up their piratical career, they are pardoned, and this releases Frederic.
The principal numbers in the first act are Ruth’s song, “When Frederic was a Little Lad”; the Pirate King’s song, “Oh! better far to live and die”; Frederic’s sentimental song, “Oh! is there not one Maiden Breast”; Mabel’s reply, “Poor Wandering One”; and the descriptive song of the General, “I am the very Pattern of a Modern Major-General,” which reminds one of Sir Joseph’s song, “When I was a Lad I served a Term,” in “Pinafore,” and Wells’ song, “Oh! my Name is John Wellington Wells,” in “The Sorcerer.” The second act opens with a chorus of the daughters and solo by Mabel, “Dear Father, why leave your Bed.” The remaining most popular numbers are the Tarantara of the Sergeant; the Pirate King’s humorous chant, “For some Ridiculous Reason”; Mabel’s ballad, “Oh, leave me not to pine,” and the Sergeant’s irresistible song, “When a Fellow’s not engaged in his Employment,” which has become familiar as a household word by frequent quotation.
Patience; or, Bunthorne’s Bride.
[Comic opera, in two acts; text by Gilbert. First produced at the Opéra Comique, London, April 23, 1881.]
PERSONAGES.
Col. Calverley,
Major Murgatroyd,
Lieutenant the Duke of Dunstable, } officers of Dragoon Guards. Reginald Bunthorne, a fleshly poet. Archibald Grosvenor, an idyllic poet. Mr. Bunthorne’s Solicitor. Lady Angela,
Lady Saphir,
Lady Ella,
Lady Jane, } rapturous maidens. Patience, a dairy-maid.[Guards, æsthetic maidens.]
The scene is laid at Castle Bunthorne; time, the last century.
The opera of “Patience” is a pungent satire upon the fleshly school of poetry as represented by Oscar Wilde and his imitators, as well as upon the fad for æsthetic culture which raged so violently a quarter of a century ago. Bunthorne, in one of his soliloquies, aptly expresses the hollowness of the sham,—
“I am not fond of uttering platitudes
In stained-glass attitudes;