Lyric Opera of Kansas City: The Pirates of Penzance

Lyric Opera of Kansas City: The Pirates of Penzance at Muriel Kauffman Theatre - Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Frederic should have been a pilot. Instead a nursemaid's slip of the ear condemned him to train with pirates until his twenty-first birthday—and now that his indenture is finally ending, duty and love arrive in fierce competition. The Pirates of Penzance brings Gilbert and Sullivan's whirlwind of mistaken loyalty, disguise and romantic confusion to the Muriel Kauffman Theatre, where Lyric Opera of Kansas City stages the English-language operetta under the baton of conductor Andy Einhorn and the direction of Sean Curran.

Frederic's predicament is equal parts honorable and absurd, a young man so devoted to doing the right thing that he'll follow even the most illogical contract to its letter. That earnestness crashes into pirates, policemen and one very eloquent Major-General, whose rapid-fire patter in I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General has tested tongues and delighted audiences for well over a century. The verbal gymnastics arrive alongside disguises that fool no one and complications that multiply with cheerful speed.

Romance threads through the chaos. Frederic falls for Mabel, whose soaring Poor Wand'ring One offers tenderness amid the mayhem, and their courtship unfolds against a backdrop of pirate codes and family obligations that make perfect sense to everyone onstage and none at all to the rest of us. Gilbert and Sullivan built the comedy on that collision between sincerity and silliness, buoyant melodies carrying the whole contraption forward.

Secure your seat in Kansas City for this operetta classic.