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Pirates of Penzance, The

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre | 2004 | | Copyright

Pirates of Penzance, The (1879). Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, about law and order, love, misplaced children, and the difficulties of being born on the extra day of leap year, was unusual among Savoyard works in that, in order to protect American copyrights, it was given its world premiere at New York's Fifth Avenue Theatre in 1879. The D'Oyly Carte production, featuring Hugh Talbot as Frederick, Blanche Roosevelt as Mabel, and J. H. Ryley as the Major General, ran just over two months. Since then it has been given numerous revivals. Memorable were those by Winthrop Ames in 1926 and the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1981. The latter mounting did not employ Sullivan's orchestrations, added material from other shows, and was staged in a freewheeling, untraditional manner, with rock stars Rex Smith and Linda Ronstadt in the romantic leads and George Rose as the Major General. As a result it displeased the purists but won the support of the critics and the public and enjoyed by far the longest American run of any Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera.

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Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Pirates of Penzance, The." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 30 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Pirates of Penzance, The." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 30, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-PiratesofPenzanceThe.html

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Pirates of Penzance, The." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved May 30, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-PiratesofPenzanceThe.html

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