In which Gilbert and Sullivan opera does Frederic only count his Leap Year birthdays, so his apprenticeship would not end until he is in his eighties?
Leap year leapling will have fewer "birthday anniversaries" than their age in years. This phenomenon is exploited when a person claims to be only a quarter of their actual age, by counting their leap-year birthday anniversaries only: for example, in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera "The Pirates of Penzance", Frederic the pirate apprentice discovers that he is bound to serve the pirates until his 21st "birthday" (that is, when he turns 88 years old, since 1900 was not a leap year) rather than until his 21st "year". For legal purposes, legal birthdays depend on how local laws count time intervals. The
His Excellency (opera) His Excellency (opera) His Excellency is a two-act comic opera with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by F. Osmond Carr. The piece concerns a practical-joking governor whose pranks threaten to make everyone miserable, until the Prince Regent kindly foils the governor's plans. Towards the end of the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership, Arthur Sullivan declined to write the music for this piece after Gilbert insisted on casting his protege, Nancy McIntosh, in the lead role; Sullivan and producer Richard D'Oyly Carte, proprietor of the Savoy Theatre, did not feel that McIntosh was adequate. The opera premiered instead under