Opera · Opera in English

H.M.S. Pinafore

25 May 1878, Opera Comique, London

Arthur Sullivan · libretto by W. S. Gilbert

A common sailor loves his captain's daughter, who is promised to the First Lord of the Admiralty; a bumboat woman's deathbed-style confession that she mixed up two babies at nurse sorts everything out by swapping the captain and the sailor. Subtitled "The Lass That Loved a Sailor", it ran 571 nights, made Gilbert and Sullivan international names, and was so comprehensively pirated in America that its successor was launched in New York to stop it happening again.

How to spot them

▸The quarterdeck of a Royal Navy ship at anchor off Portsmouth
▸A First Lord of the Admiralty who has never been to sea and polished the handle of the big front door
▸A bumboat woman who nursed two babies and mixed them up
▸A one-eyed prophet of doom whom nobody likes; a captain who never — well, hardly ever — swears
▸Subtitled 'The Lass That Loved a Sailor'

Arias & moments — listen

"When I was a lad I served a term as office boy to an attorney's firm" — how sticking to your desk can make you the Ruler of the Queen's Navee (1878)

Sir Joseph Porter's song, widely taken as a hit at W. H. Smith, the bookseller made First Lord in 1877

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"We sail the ocean blue" and "I'm called Little Buttercup, dear Little Buttercup" (1878)

The opening chorus and the bumboat woman's entrance, hawking snuff, treacle and toffee to the crew

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"He is an Englishman!" — a chorus congratulating a man on having resisted all temptation to belong to other nations (1878)

'A British tar is a soaring soul' leads into the patriotic tag that has been quoted ironically ever since

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"Things are seldom what they seem — skim milk masquerades as cream" (1878)

Little Buttercup's duet with the Captain, in proverbs, hinting at the secret she has yet to tell

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"The hours creep on apace" — the captain's daughter weighs a lowly sailor against a rich man's home in Belgrave Square (1878)

Josephine's Act 2 scena, a full-dress Italian mad-scene parody

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

"What, never? — No, never! — What, never? — Well, hardly ever!" (1878)

The catchphrase the piece gave the English language, from the Captain's entrance song

Recording: His Master's Voice · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

A nurse confesses she mixed up two babies, so the captain and the able seaman swap ranks on the spot (1878)

Gilbert's 'baby farming' device: the entire social hierarchy is undone by a clerical error at the cradle

Quick-fire facts

•Opened at the Opera Comique, London, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, then the second-longest run of any musical theatre work.
•Business collapsed in the heatwave of summer 1878 and was rescued when Sullivan conducted a selection from the score at the Covent Garden Promenade Concerts.
•Sir Joseph Porter KCB, First Lord of the Admiralty, was widely read as a caricature of W. H. Smith, the newsagent appointed First Lord in 1877; Gilbert denied it.
•Characters: Captain Corcoran, his daughter Josephine, Ralph Rackstraw, Little Buttercup (Mrs Cripps), Dick Deadeye, Cousin Hebe and Sir Joseph Porter.
•Well over a hundred unauthorised productions ran in America; Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte mounted their own 'authentic' New York version in December 1879.
•'What, never? Well, hardly ever!' became a national catchphrase within months of the opening.
•The comedian George Grossmith created Sir Joseph, the first of his long line of Savoy patter roles.
•Gilbert had made his name with the Bab Ballads, and reworked several of their ideas — including baby-swapping and a sailor in love above his station — into the libretto.

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources

The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive — H.M.S. Pinafore
Encyclopaedia Britannica — H.M.S. Pinafore: operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan
Michael Ainger — Gilbert and Sullivan: A Dual Biography