The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is pleased to announce that it will present The Pirates of Penzance from October 30 to November 22, 2026. This production, subtitled, Love & Duty in the Old West , has been reconceived and revised by director Joe Andrews, with music direction by Dr. Randal Buikema. The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is mounting a perennial favorite with a new twist. Transposed to America’s Old West, The Pirates of Penzance maintains its supremely buoyant score, sense of adventure, and improbable paradoxes, but the action plays against the backdrop of the California-Nevada border during the Gold Rush. The pirates are sentimental bandits, the police are sheriffs and deputies, and love and duty win the day, of course! Frederic, a prairie pirate’s apprentice, falls head-over-heels in love with Mabel, one of many daughters of General Stanley. Frederic is due to be released from his apprenticeship as a prairie pirate on his 21st birthday, but there’s a snag … of course. Although very much in love, his dedication to duty is unshakeable. Can he find a way to live happily-ever-after with Mabel? Embark on a delightful journey with The Pirates of Pe

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is pleased to announce that it will present The Grand Duke , for four weekends, from February 26 to March 21, 2027. This production will be directed by Paul R. Coate, with music direction by Dr. Randal Buikema. The Grand Duke , Gilbert and Sullivan’s final collaboration, tells the delightful story of a theater company plotting to take political power in the Duchy of Pfennig Halbpfennig. The plot hinges on the misinterpretation of a law regarding “statutory duels,” which are fought with playing cards and result in “legal deaths.” Ludwig, the company’s comedian, spearheads the rebellion against the miserly Grand Duke Rudolph, takes power and, on the way, becomes engaged to four different women. The story features sausage rolls, theater contracts, ghosts, large bottles of champagne and a game or two of roulette! In The Grand Duke , Gilbert lampoons the frugality and phoniness of the wealthy classes and nobility, while also taking aim at governmental leaders with some particularly pointed political satire. Sullivan’s beautifully varied score includes lilting Viennese waltz music as well as Offenbach inspired French melodies. The Gilbert &

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is pleased to announce that it will present The Gondoliers , for four weekends, from October 29 to November 21, 2027. The Gondoliers tells the story of two just-married Venetian gondoliers who are informed by the Grand Inquisitor that one of them has just become the King of Barataria, but only their nursemaid, presently at large, knows which one. As Barataria needs a king to put down unrest in the country, they must travel there immediately to reign jointly, leaving their wives behind in Venice until the nursemaid can be interviewed. It turns out that the king was wed in infancy to the beautiful daughter of the Spanish Duke of Plaza Toro, and so it seems he is an unintentional bigamist. The beautiful daughter, however, is in love with a common servant! When the young Spaniard and the two Venetian wives all show up in Barataria, at the same time, wanting to know which of them is queen, complications arise. In the end, the true identity of the king is revealed, and all is resolved spectacularly. Gilbert’s satire focuses on the snobbery of class distinctions, and with the operetta set far away from Great Britain, Gilbert is emboldened to

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company is pleased to announce that it will present Princess Ida , from March 10 to April 2, 2028. Princess Ida tells the story of Princess Ida and Prince Hilarion, who were married in infancy by their fathers, King Gama and King Hildebrand. Ida, however, refuses to be bound by the decisions that others have made for her and has left her father’s court to establish a college for women from which all men are barred. Hilarion and his friends infiltrate the castle, disguised as women, in Hilarion’s attempt to win Princess Ida’s love. King Hildebrand, however, grows impatient and storms the castle. Ida is abandoned by her women, who fear a military conflict, and is failed by her brothers who offer to fight for her, but lose. Ultimately, as she has come to know Hilarion, however, realizes that she loves him, and decides for herself that she will consent to their marriage. In Princess Ida , Gilbert satirizes feminism, women’s education and Darwinian evolution, which were controversial topics in conservative Victorian England. The operetta is based on a narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, called The Princess , written in 1847. Gilbert had writt