8 | productionnote
Notes on the Production WRITTEN BY
Julia Brown Simmons PHOTOS BY
Jeff Roffman
Production photos of The Pirates of Penzance from The Atlanta Opera’s 2016 production at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre.
Charles Dickens wrote in his novel Bleak House, “You have served your country and you know that when duty calls we must obey.” Dickens’s exploration—and frequent criticism—of “duty” in his 1852 novel responds to the sense of duty to queen and country that pervaded Victorian England. Dickens was not alone in his inclination to respond to this feature of Victorian life—Gilbert and Sullivan, too, picked it up in their Pirates of Penzance, an 1879 satiric operetta for which the alternative title is The Slave of Duty.
atlantaopera.org | @theatlantaopera
