Do you hear the patter of little pirates’ feet?
No, by Jove!
That’s the sound of the world’s best patter song: “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General”! (A patter song is a much-too-fast-to-say set of lyrics matched with impossibly rapid notes.) And yet the Major General (preternaturally skilled comic and baritone Troy Cook) gets those silly words out every time, in the topsy-turvy world of Gilbert and Sullivan’s second (of their 14) operettas, “The Pirates of Penzance,” (1879) now at Virginia Opera.
“Topsy-turvy” in G & S land means ironic, satiric, covertly hypocritical. If you’re sneaking up on someone, for example, you don’t have a chorus loudly sing, “With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal!” Further examples abound, creating this raucous satire of prissy, patriotic Britannic rule (and rules) under that most British of queens, the great colonizer Victoria. The attack is being led by that most British of lyricist/composer teams: W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.
Readers of Hampton Roads, of all places, know the difference between a harbor pilot and a pirate. Both are nautical professions, but one’s entirely noble (leading ships in and out of harbor) while the other’s entirely ignoble (leading to the lamentable expletive, ‘Arrrghh!’). Besides, no one would ever read sit down to read a newspaper called The Virginian-Pirate (at least not in public).
But, again, they might, in this comic classic. A mistaking of the two words “pilot” and “pirate” by a hard-of-hearing nursemaid precipitates the whole plot of “The Pirates of Penzance.” It’s the touching (!) story of dutiful young Frederick (tenor Martin Bakari) being mistakenly apprenticed to the Pirate King (Johnny Deppish-looking bass-baritone Aubrey Allicock) by his nursemaid Ruth (randily played by mezzo-soprano Lucy Schaufer). She has stuck around on the pirates’ ship in hopes of someday marrying her charge.
Frederick, celebrating his 21st birthday as the operetta begins, is thrilled to be ending his apprenticeship to crime. He even feels dutybound to return to “exterminate” his pirate friends. (He is, as a now-omitted subtitle says, “The Slave to Duty,” with the now-recognized-as-painful connotations of the word “slave” justifying its omission.) A plot twist intervenes: Frederick is apprenticed until his “25th birthday” instead of 25 years, and, uh-oh, he was born on a leap day.
That will lengthen his indenture until 1940 (remember, it’s a 19th-century opera) and confound his hopes of marrying (despite Ruth’s overtures) his heart’s desire: the lovely Mabel (here, sopranos-mocking-soprano Amy Owens). Mabel and her bevy of sisters, all wards of the shifty, patter-Meister Major General, form the female chorus; the pirates and a group of timid policemen form the two male choruses of the three-chorus piece. (If ever policemen needed defunding or re-training, this woebegone lot does.) The policemen’s dance movements, like Keystone Cops in slow motion, are, however, a wonder of acting and blocking, a hallmark of the directorial skills of Kyle Lang. (One recognizes his gift for timing, blocking and funny stage business from the recent VOA production of “The Marriage of Figaro.”)
This production of “Pirates,” including costumes, hails in part from the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, with scenery rented from the Atlanta Opera and Palm Beach Opera. Immensely popular, G & S operettas have been such ‘collaborative” undertakings, sometimes to the point of copyright piracy. As Joshua Borths, the VOA resident scholar, points out in his wonderful audience-enrichment lecture, to prevent the literary “pirating” that plagued their first hit, “H.M.S. Pinafore,” Gilbert and Sullivan had “Pirates” premiere in London one night and the U.S. the next night to frustrate the thieving practice. On this, they were united; however, they were otherwise a “topsy-turvy” misfit pair. Lyricist Gilbert — acerbic, testy, litigious, but a master showman — was “vinegar” to composer Sullivan’s sweet and easygoing “oil.” Sullivan was also a hedonist, fond of prostitutes and travel despite his chronic bad health.
But someone promised further examples of “topsy-turvyness” in “The Pirates of Penzance.” Remember Gilbert’s attack of the three “p” themes of the show? According to Borths, they include (false) patriotism, (false) propriety and (false) prudishness. Consider, for example, an egotistical (but winsome) Major General who is not above lying about being an orphan to soften the heart of threatening pirates. He also lies about having noble ancestors, but then admits he “purchased” them in the form of a graveyard: “I don’t know whose ancestors they were, but I know whose ancestors they are …”). Does such hypocrisy reflect well on the country he so proudly serves? Consider the “brave” British policemen, shivering in their shoes and hiding behind hilariously rotating tombstones in the graveyard. The Sergeant of Police (Jeremy Harr) perfectly guides his men in gently singing/complaining “A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.” Evidently! And consider the frail, tender British women who exhort these shrinking policemen to battle by singing their guts out: “Go ye heroes, go to glory! / Though ye die in combat gory, /Ye shall live in song and story.” Who could resist such an overture?
There are, of course, unfunny moments in a century-old text. The subtitle “The Slave of Duty” has been mentioned; there are likewise digs at women’s “homeliness” which may or may not make them marriageable if not desirable. Nursemaids who try to marry their charges — that’s a bit weird, too. And how did the Major General amass all those young female wards?
But hey, lighten up! It’s a comic operetta!
Welcome to Topsy-Turvydom/the British Empire, crazily ruled by the eventually knighted Sir W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. Parliament and Queen Victoria just helped a little.
(Watch for her possible royal cameo!)
Page Laws is dean emerita of the Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. prlaws@aya.yale.edu
If you go
When: 8 p.m. Friday; 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Where: Harrison Opera House, 160 W. Virginia Beach Blvd., Norfolk
Tickets: $12.51-$140
Details: 866-673-7282, vaopera.org
