BROADWAY PIRATES - BACKGROUND

PROGRAMME NOTE WRITTEN BY RACHEL KEEGAN FOR HATTON OPERATIC SOCIETY'S PRODUCTION OF "THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE" (BROADWAY VERSION) IN JUNE 1992

'The Pirates of Penzance' was a particularly appropriate choice for the New York Shakespeare Festival's summer presentation in 1980 since 'Pirates' is the only one of the Savoy Operas to have been premiered on Broadway.

Strictly speaking, the premiere of 'Pirates' took place at the Bijou Theatre Paignton, the day before the New York opening, but this was a single performance whose only purpose was to protect the British copyright. The reason for the unlikely venue was that the D'Oyly Carte touring company was engaged in a run of 'HMS Pinafore' in nearby Torquay. The performers at the 'Pirates' performance wore their 'Pinafore' sailor costumes with only minimal changes (headscarves to distinguish pirates from policemen!) and sight read the songs from handwritten sheets. 'Pirates' opened at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York on 31 December 1879 with the composer himself conducting. The London premiere was on 3 April 1880 and the show ran for 363 performances.

The first performance of what has come to be known as 'Broadway Pirates' took place at the Delacorte Open Air Theatre in Central Park, New York, on 15 July 1980. The show was so successful that it transferred to Broadway for 787 performances - the longest run achieved by any production of a Gilbert & Sullivan opera. The new version was first performed in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 26 May 1982 with George Cole as the Major General, Pamela Stephenson as Mabel and a youthful Bonnie Langford as Kate. The show has been revived professionally several times since then and a film version featuring the original Broadway cast was made in 1982.

Readers who are familiar with the traditional book and score may be surprised to discover how closely the new version follows the original. The spoken dialogue is virtually unchanged and the most noticeable differences in the music are in the orchestration (in which there are no strings, and electric keyboards and percussion feature prominently) and in the style of performance. Several of the musical numbers are extended to provide opportunities for stage business or choreography. Perhaps the most striking of these is the tempo and key change at the end of 'With Cat Like Tread' - other examples are the fight sequences in the Pirate King's song and the Act II finale and the comic dance routine in the middle of 'A Policeman's Lot'.

There is no overture - a brief, tempestuous prelude (based on the Act II trio 'Away, Away') leads straight into the opening chorus. After this, the normal sequence of musical numbers is followed for Act I. Act II contains two additional items - the patter trio 'My Eyes Are Fully Open' from 'Ruddigore' (sung by Frederic, Ruth and the Pirate King) and a modern arrangement of the song 'Sorry Her Lot' from 'HMS Pinafore' sung by Mabel on discovering that she will not be able to marry Frederic until 1940. Purists may object to these additions, but there is one other change which is more authentic - the Act II finale reinstates a reprise of the Major General's song which was performed on Broadway in 1879 but was cut before the first London production. A small change has been made in the present production to take account of the fact that our ladies' chorus is somewhat larger than the 'eight or nine or ten in all' envisaged by Gilbert. We appreciate that our amended version is not ideal, but if anyone can come up with a suitable wording which rhymes with 'General', we would like to hear from them!