Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance begins with Frederic parting company with the pirates upon reaching the age of 21. In a subsequent plot twist, it turns out that the terms of his apprenticeship are that he will serve with the pirates not until he reaches the age of 21, but until his 21st birthday. Normally, this would be one and the same, but the specific plot twist is that Frederick was born on a leap day and won’t reach his 21st birthday until 1940. (Evidently the decision to release him from his apprenticeship based on his age instead of birthday was one of those pesky clerical errors)
This means:
- The musical takes place in March. For some reason it seems to me like more of a summer thing.
- If Frederick won’t have his 21st birthday until 1940 (at which point he’ll be 84 years old), then he must have been born in 1856 and the events in the story take place in 1877. (According to Wikipedia, the musical premiered in 1879)
I don’t know why, but every time I’ve seen the play or listened to the soundtrack, I’ve found myself thinking about the dates involved. Today I finally sat down and figured out what they were.
It seems like it happens in summer because at the beginning Mabel and her sisters decide to wade barefoot in the sea, and they even sing a song (“Climbing Over Rocky Mountain”) that alludes to a river “swollen with summer rain.” Mind you — and here’s a bit of trivia for you — that song was not originally a part of the operetta. Gilbert and Sullivan discovered during the trip from England to New York that they were missing their “sketches” describing how that scene should go, so they used a song from a completed work, Thespis.
I’ve never really been able to make out the words in “Climbing Over Rocky Mountain.” (On the copy of the soundtrack I have right now from iTunes, I can barely make out the words to anything!)
As much as anything else, I suspect my perception of The Pirates of Penzance is largely influenced by The Pirate Movie. Everything in that movie looked like summer time. (Looking back on it now, everything about that movie was also cheesy, but I digress.)
There’s also the fact that The Pirates of Penzance involves, well, Pirates. (Hard to believe I know, but true nonetheless.) I’ve pretty much always associated Pirates with warmer climes, and warmer climes make me think of summer. (No, not Summer – though that’s not a bad thought – but rather the warmer part of the year.)
You really should see the movie version of The Pirates and Penzance with Kevin Kline as the Pirate King and Linda Ronstadt as Mabel. It’s really, really good. Really. 🙂