Opera AACC to put on “Pirates of Penzance”
April 13, 2023
Opera AACC will perform the comedic opera “Pirates of Penzance” in May.
The company’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1880 show will run May 19-21 in the Kauffman Theater.
“It’s really fun music,” Maureen Mcardel, a 10th-year music student who will sing in the chorus, said. “The tunes are very catchy. I think people will really like the whole [performance]. It’s … a funky little show.”
“Pirates of Penzance” is centered around the exploits of a boy named Frederic who accidentally indentured himself to a group of pirates.
Will Kuethe, who will play Frederic, said Gilbert and Sullivan were “the Monty Python of classical music.”
“I’ve done a couple of their operas in other places, and they’re all really funny,” Keuthe, an eighth-year continuing education student, said. “It’s just good music and it’s fun.”
Doug Byerly, the artistic director of the show, who will also play Major General Stanley, said working on the performance is “a lot of fun.”
“This company is a joy to work with,” Byerly, a music professor who founded the opera company in 2001, said. “We have a good diversity of students that represent the college in a great way.”
Liz Barrett, who will play one of the pirates, said she “knows this opera backwards and forwards.”
“I’ve been singing Gilbert and Sullivan since I was 6,” Barrett, who has been taking classes at AACC for 40 years, said. “[Pirates] is my favorite musical of all time.”