London Symphony Orchestra

This is such a popular and well-known plot that I trust a "spoiler alert" is not necessary. Still, it is helpful to review the names and appreciate the turns in this wonderful pirate yarn.

Frederick is an orphan about to be released from his apprenticeship as a pirate, a profession against his better judgment but which he practiced out of a sense of duty. The pirates celebrate his coming of age, but turn down his offer to join him in turning himself in. Frederick was unable to convince them even by pointing out that they were not very successful at piracy, since it had become well known that they were orphans and would allow their prey to go free if they too were orphans. So, captured ships' entire companies routinely claim to be orphans. The Pirate King notes that, compared with respectability, piracy is comparatively honest ("Oh! better far to live and die").

The pirates sail away, leaving Frederic and his Ruth, the only woman Frederic has ever seen. Frederic sees a group of beautiful young girls approaching the pirate lair, and realizes that Ruth has lied to him about her appearance ("Oh false one! You have deceived me!"). He sends her away, and reveals himself to the bevy. One of them, Mabel, responds to his plea for their help in becoming respectable ("Oh sisters deaf to pity's name for shame!"). She sings to him ("Poor wand'ring one"), and Frederic and Mabel quickly fall in love.

The pirates come back, and capture all the girls, intending to marry them ("Here's a first rate opportunity"). Mabel warns the pirates that the girls' father is a Major-General ("Hold, monsters!"), who soon arrives and introduces himself ("I am the very model of a modern Major-General"). He appeals to the pirates not to take his daughters, leaving him to face his old age alone. Having heard of the famous Pirates of Penzance, he further pretends that he is an orphan, basically lying to gain their sympathy ("Oh, men of dark and dismal fate"). Act I closes with the releasing of the Major-General and his daughters ("Hail, Poetry!"), and the soft-hearted pirates make all of them honorary members of their band ("Pray observe the magnanimity").

Act II finds the Major-General wracked by guilt for having deceived the pirates, but he is consoled tenderly by his daughters and soon by the police who have arrived to arrest the pirates in their lair. Meanwhile, the Pirate King and Ruth find Frederic and explain that it has occurred to them that his apprenticeship was worded so as to bind him to them until his twenty-first birthday – and, because that birthday happens to be on 29 February (in a leap year), it means that technically only five birthdays have passed ("When you had left our pirate fold"), and he will not reach his twenty-first birthday until he is in his eighties.

The duty-bound Frederic realizes he must rejoin the pirates, and as a pirate, must inform the Pirate King of the Major-General's deception. The outraged outlaw declares that "revenge will be swift and terrible".
Frederic meets Mabel and she pleads with him to stay ("Stay Frederic, stay"), but he explains that he must fulfil his duty to the pirates until his 21st birthday in 1940. He promises to return then and claim her. They agree to be faithful to each other until then, though to Mabel "It seems so long" ("Oh here is love and here is truth"), and Frederic departs. Mabel steels herself ("No, I'll be brave") and tells the police that they must go alone to face the pirates. They muse that an outlaw might be just like any other man, and it is a shame to deprive him of "that liberty which is so dear to all" ("When a felon's not engaged in his employment"). The police hide on hearing the approach of the pirates ("A rollicking band of pirates we"), who have stolen onto the grounds, meaning to avenge themselves for the Major-General's lie ("With cat-like tread").

All is set for a fight between the police and the pirates ("Hush, hush! not a word"), when the Major-General appears, sleepless with guilt. General Stanley listens to the soothing sighing of the breeze ("Sighing softly to the river") and his girls come looking for him ("Now what is this and what is that"). The pirates leap to the attack, and the police rush to the defence. The police are easily defeated, and the Pirate King urges the captured Major-General to prepare for death.

However, the police Sergeant plays a truly surprising trump card: He demands that the pirates yield "in Queen Victoria's name". The pirates, overcome with loyalty to their Queen, do so. Ruth reappears and reveals that the orphan pirates are "all noblemen who have gone wrong". The Major-General is impressed by this and all is forgiven. Frederic and Mabel are reunited, and the Major-General is happy to marry his daughters off to titled pirates.… (altro)