Praise for The Pirates of Penzance

 

Reginald Smith Jr. (The Pirate King, center) with members of the Seattle Opera Chorus in The Pirates of Penzance. Photo: Sunny Martini.

Audiences are raving about The Pirates of Penzance! Seattle Opera's first-ever Gilbert & Sullivan production, this topsy-turvy tale is a swashbuckling good time for the whole family. Read what critics have to say about this bright, colorful show and don't miss your chance to catch The Pirates of Penzance at McCaw Hall, now through November 1. Tickets and info at seattleopera.org/pirates.

There's no such thing as operetta!

by Joshua Gailey

Promotional poster for The Pirates of Penzance, c. 1880.
Source: The Library of Congress.

A Few Questions for the Pirate King

Grammy and Emmy Award winning baritone Reginald Smith Jr. makes his Seattle Opera debut in October as the Pirate King in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance.
Photo © Jiyang Chen

After spending part of the summer at the Interlochen Festival, we had time to speak with baritone Reginald Smith Jr. In our chat with the Pirate King, we learn about why this role is special, his talented mother, and what he packs for life on the road. 

A Few Questions for Mabel

We open our 2025/26 season with Gilbert and Sullivan’s nautical farce, The Pirates of Penzance. Soprano Vanessa Becerra is singing the role of Mabel and is making her Seattle Opera debut. 
Photo © Andrew Morstein

Soprano Vanessa Becerra is eager to make her Seattle Opera debut in The Pirates of Penzance in the coming months. She’s equally eager to sing the part of Mabel for the first time…well, sort of. In this conversation, Vanessa clears the air about this role debut, talks about her childhood quest for pop stardom, and explains her desire to sing Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro. And you’ll have the opportunity to hear Vanessa again this season; she’s also appearing in Fellow Travelers in 2026.

A Few Questions for Major-General Stanley

Baritone Thomas Glass will make his Seattle Opera debut in The Pirates of Penzance this fall singing the role of Major-General Stanley.

Baritone Thomas Glass will sing the role of the Major-General in this fall’s production of The Pirates of Penzance. We recently caught up with Thomas in his hometown of Edina, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis, to discuss his childhood, his performance bucket list, and what he’s currently binge-watching.

Artist Statement by Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce

In the 2025/26 season, Seattle Opera will present Fellow Travelers, one of the most frequently performed new operas of the past decade, in collaboration with New York-based artistic collective Up Until Now, as part of a national project that brings this important story to stages across the country. Read on for an artist statement from composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce.

Happy Retirement!

Seattle Opera Choristers Stephen Wall and Eleanor Stallcop-Horrox, Assistant Conductor Philip A. Kelsey, and Company Manager Paula Podemski have worked at the opera a combined total of 145 years, creating memorable opera experiences both onstage and behind the scenes. Tosca marks the end of their Seattle Opera careers, but before they start the next chapter of their lives, these veteran professionals shared some of their best memories. All agree that they are looking forward to being in the audience and staying in touch with their friends at the opera for many years to come.

Seattle Opera’s Legendary Tosca Production

It was the mid-‘60s. Glynn Ross, the dynamic General Director of the brand-new Seattle Opera, wanted to show his employers—the Seattle Opera Board of Trustees—that he could present compelling opera productions while balancing the budget. Before Ross, every attempt to present opera in Seattle had ended in a big deficit, including the Seattle Symphony’s opulent 1962 Aida, presented as part of the World’s Fair. While creating Seattle Center, the city had transformed its vast old Civic Auditorium into the Seattle Opera House. (It would later be transformed into McCaw Hall, which opened in 2003.) It’s nice to have a terrific theater in which to showcase opera. But you still have to have the money to pay for the world’s most expensive art form.

When in Rome

A historian considers the characters of Tosca

by Susan Nicassio

With some operas, the exact setting, in terms of time and place, doesn’t much matter. Not so in Tosca. The historic context of Rome during the Napoleonic wars is as integral to the story as Tosca’s jealousy and Scarpia’s cunning. We meet Tosca on a particular day in history—June 17, 1800—as Napoleon’s army encroaches into Italy and pushes back the Austrians, who were allied with the conservative forces that governed Rome. The fictional characters of Tosca, originally conceived in the play by Victorien Sardou, are as true to their time as any you’ll find on the opera stage. Let’s consider them in the order we’re about to meet them.

Battle of Austerlitz, 2 December 1805, François Gérard, 1810, Palace of Versailles.

Tosca's Rome

by Jonathan Dean

Giacomo Puccini's Tosca takes place over the course of a few hours, in three actual locations near each other in Rome, not far from the Vatican (you can still go visit them and see if the scenic designer did his research). More so than most operas, Tosca requires carefully designed, realistic scenery to reflect the authenticity and detail of the stage action. In this article, we take a closer look at the real-life venues that inspired the opera.