This week we have musical highlights from The Pirates of Penzanze . It's Frederic's 21st birthday and at last he is free of his indenture to the Pirates of Penzance thus free to marry his beloved Mabel, who he has just met. Or is he? Of course he isn't, we are in the world of Gilbert and Sullivan. After all, he was born on February 29th, a leap year, and so is really only 5 years old, to complicate things, Mabel, daughter of the Major General, and her bevy of beautiful sisters are accosted by the pirates. The major General organizes the police to attack the pirates, and asks Frederic to help - but he cannot, because of his oath to the pirates. But all is saved when Ruth, who got the infant Frederic into the whole Pirate situation to begin with, declares that the pirates are all noblemen gone astray, and therefore are worthy of the hands of the Major-General's daughters.
This week we have highlights of a recording from the late 1960's supervised by Bridget D'Orly Carte, the daughter of Richard D'Orly Carte who produced many of G&S's original works in the late 19th c. John Reed is the Major General, Donald Adams as the pirate King, Phillip Potter as Frederic and Valerie Masterson as Mabel. Isadore Godfrey conducts the D'Orly carte company and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra .