We are delighted to announce our next opera project at the Vienna Volksoper: a new adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE.

Following the success of ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD which has now enjoyed three sell-out seasons at the Volksoper since its debut in 2023, we are turning our Opera of the Funny guns on those giants of English comic opera, WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.

Toby and Aitor have invited Viennese writer and dramaturg Jennifer Weiss to create a new adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s most acclaimed work, in German and English.

The project re-unites Spymonkey directing team Toby Park and Aitor Basauri with designer Julian Crouch and choreographer Gail Skrela.

We are also delighted to be reunited with Spymonkey co-founder Petra Massey, returning from her long-term secondment with Spiegelworld Las Vegas in 2019. Petra and fellow UK clown Lucy Hopkins play the great-grand-daughters of Gilbert and Sullivan, keen to reclaim their ancestors’ radical topsy-turvy spirit from asphyxiation by English provincial am-dram hum-drum traditionalism. Marcel Mohab plays a cultural minister with an axe to grind, and Katharina Pizzera blunts it with her steely gaze of wither.

A shoal of sub-aquatic policemen, skull-and-cross-bone-dressing pirates, a straight-talking nursemaid, mis-firing cannon, plank-walking, parrot-talking, up-staging, keel-hauling, kraken-waking, prank-pulling mayhem for lovers of anarchy, laughter and mayhem.

Booking and performance details on the Volksoper website here.