Three Welsh performers - Sian Winstanley, Sioned Gwen Davies and Catrine Kirkman – will be taking to the stage in Gilbert and Sullivan’s best loved operetta, The Pirates of Penzance, as it completes its national tour at Wales Millennium Centre this week.
Cardiff-born Winstanley, chorus member and understudy for the lead role of Mabel, is a graduate from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. She performs alongside Sioned Gwen Davies, who hails from Colwyn Bay and plays the role of Kate, and Catrine Kirkman from Swansea who plays Isabel.
The cast, brimming with young talent, is led by established Gilbert and Sullivan stars, Steven Page, playing the Pirate King, and Richard Suart as the Major-General.
A fun, fresh and sparkling celebration of quintessentially British humour, The Pirates of Penzance rolls adventure, comedy and love story into one. Having turned 21, Frederic should be contractually released from his apprenticeship to a band of pirates, but his birthday is February 29, a leap year.
Taking his duty a little too literally, he decides it will be another 63 years before he’s really 21 and only Mabel’s promise to wait sustains him.
With an engaging range of characters, from a beautiful young girl to a soft-hearted pirate with his hopeless band of rogues, a very modern major general and a handful of ineffectual policemen, the show is bound to raise plenty of laughs.
After a 10 year break from producing, The Pirates of Penzance marks D’Oyly Carte Opera Company’s return to the stage in this coproduction with Scottish Opera. The Pirates of Penzance offers some of Gilbert’s wittiest lyrics, coupled with Sullivan’s signature catchy melodies, and parodies of opera composers.
Conrad Lynch, artistic director of Wales Millennium Centre said: “This collaboration sees D’Oyly Carte’s expertise in Gilbert and Sullivan coupled with Scottish Opera’s own record for top quality productions.”
The Pirates of Penzance will be at Wales Millennium Centre from July 16–20 July 20 2013. Tickets priced £17–£42.50. For information visit www.wmc.org.uk or call 02920 63 6464. Age restriction: Five and over
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