Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance opens at CU

By Peter Alexander

Paul Kroeger as Frederic and Frank Fainer as the Pirate King in the CU production of ‘Pirates of Penzance’
(Photo by Glenn Asakawa/University of Colorado)

Watch for the Barbie dolls.

They will be part of the fun when the University of Colorado Opera Theater, with two full casts of students and the CU orchestra in the pit, presents Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance.

Not that the production will be a post-modern reinterpretation of the classic British musical comedy.

“The pirates will be pirates,” stage director and CU director of opera Leigh Holman says. “No Martians. Nothing on the moon. It’s straightforward and very colorful.”

General Stanley, one of the central comic characters, will definitely be a general, although British humor being what it is, he will be, Holman says, “a general with a parasol.”

The pirates will even have a ship. “Pirates of Penzance is not usually done on a ship,” she explains. “But I told the [set] designer [Peter Dean Beck] I want those guys to be on a ship, so we’ve got ropes hanging and they can swing from the ropes.”

Read more in Boulder Weekly—including Malibu Barbie!

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Rex Smith as Frederic, Linda Ronstadt as Mabel, and Kevin Kline as the Pirate King in a famous 1980 production of ‘Pirates of Penzance’ that was a favorite of CU Opera director Leigh Holman.

Pirates of Penzance
CU Opera Theater
Leigh Holman, stage director
Nicholas Carthy, music director
Peter Dean Beck, deisgner

7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 24 and 25
2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26
CU Macky Auditorium

Get tickets to the CU Opera production of Pirates of Penzance here.