It’s not often that fans of W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan get to see their most popular musical, The Pirates of Penzance, performed on the grand stage by professional singers, but this delightful classic will kick off Seattle Opera’s 2025–26 season at McCaw Hall on October 18. A cast of young singers are making their Seattle debuts in a shared production that has received rave reviews at the Glimmerglass Festival, the Atlanta Opera, and the Opera Center of Saint Louis. With its winning combination of memorable music and goofy humor, Seattleites have a chance to see a new production of a great classic, designed to make the audience laugh, clap, and leave the theater whistling its catchy tunes.
The Pirates of Penzance is “light opera” characterized by a comic plot, spoken dialogue, and music performed in English. It’s accessible enough to be performed by high school students with the piano teacher at the keyboard (I was a mustachioed pirate girl myself, in the tenth grade) as well as by community theater groups with local singers and a pick-up orchestra. Many of us are familiar with G&S operettas because the Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society has been presenting the full repertoire since 1954 — with special cheers arising whenever Pirates comes around again.
With Seattle Opera presenting a new take on an old favorite, audiences have a chance to join regular fans in seeing it performed by a cast of young professionals, most of whom are making their Seattle Opera debuts in this show.
The story of Federic (David Portillo), an apprentice pirate who wants to become respectable, is populated with a Pirate King (Reginald Smith, Jr.); Frederic’s love interest, Mable ( Vanessa Becerra); and a “Modern Major General” (Thomas Glass), who performs the most famous rapid-fire patter song in the opera repertoire. The joke in the title would have been understood at the London premiere in 1879, because Penzance — a quiet little seaside town in Cornwall —hadn’t seen real pirates since the 17th century, so the chorus of them are the very polite opposite of what you would expect.
What better antidote to the dreary news of today than satire? If you’ve never seen this delightfully silly seafaring saga, you owe it to yourself to cheer up and have a good laugh. It’s kids-of-all-ages friendly and 100% guaranteed to bring big grins to faces young and old.
The Pirates of Penzance will be at Seattle Opera from October 18 through November 1, 2025. Call 206-389-7676 for tickets or go to https://www.seattleopera.org/performances-events/the-pirates-of-penzance/.
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