The Pirates of Penzance

Act One

The scene opens on a secluded beach on the coast of Cornwall, England, in the Victorian era. A raucous band of pirates is drinking and making merry ("Pour, oh pour the pirate sherry"). It is also Frederic’s twenty-first birthday, and as he is bound as an apprentice pirate until noon that day, his obligations to the group are almost over. The Pirate King congratulates him on being (almost) a full-fledged pirate, but Frederic confesses to the group that he plans instead to abandon the piratical life. Frederic’s nursemaid, Ruth, explains to the group that the lad wasn’t even supposed to be a pirate apprentice in the first place; when instructed to apprentice him to a ship’s pilot when he was eight years old, she misheard the instructions and instead bound him to a pirate ("When Frederic was a little lad").

Frederic then announces that, although he loves all of the pirates individually, he does not find the profession at all respectable and he feels