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This 'Pirates' will steal your heart and leave you laughing all the way to the plank

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If you're ready for a delightful summer theatrical romp full of brilliant physical humor, sparkling repartee and soaring baritone and soprano solos, look no further: Your ship has come in.

The "Pirates of Penzance," the iconic Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera that's been a crowd fav since it opened on Broadway in 1879, set sail on Thursday at the Rochester Opera House under the adroit production of Scott H. Severance and his PerSeverance Productions.

Severance opened the play with a scene setter, dispassionately walking a picture of a pirate ship behind a cardboard wall on which was painted the whitecaps of a rolling sea. The audience roared without a word being spoken, setting the tone for an evening of madcap mayhem, high seas high jinks and titillating tomfoolery.

The plotline is simple enough. Frederic, indentured to a hapless band of pirates on the coast of England, hates his profession and can't wait till his 21st birthday when he is free of his servitude, but comes to find out he was born on Feb. 29 of a leap year, so he owes them another 60 years.

Besides that, it's not a very successful band of pirates as since the members of this band of "cutthroats" are all orphans, they refuse to rob from any others who have met the same plight.

So the crews of any ships plundered know what to say upon being boarded.

"They always say their orphans," complains one pirate.

Meanwhile, Frederic (Galen Graham), now approaching manhood (in real years), wants a wife, but there is only one woman among the pirate band, the lass who nursed him as a child. But her longings for Frederic grow complicated when a bevy a beautiful ladies happen upon the pirates' secret lair on the coast of Cornwall.

Of the ladies, one strikes Frederic's fancy, Mabel (Mai Hartwich), the daughter of a major general, played by Severance.

Closing the first act is his stunningly entertaining performance of one of the comic opera's iconic numbers, "I am the very model of a modern Major General," hilariously huffing and puffing his way through this most technically demanding of songs impeccably.

The opera boasts two other virtuoso performances: the precise inflections of Hartwich's soaring soprano solos and a wonderful baritone by king of the pirates Joe Murphy.

Keep in mind, playgoers, no one is wired for sound for this show. This is the way it would have sounded at the Rochester Opera House when it was first built.

"Pirates of Penzance" continues tonight through Aug. 11. For tickets go to rochesteroperahouse.com.

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