The production, which originated in 1879 as Gilbert & Sullivan's response to unethical "pirates" who took advantage of the lack of an international copyright to steal their stage success, HMS Pinafore, was under the stage direction of Robert Binder and the musical direction of Paul Salter, who presented the sold-out Mikado last year and have been responsible for several other musical hits in recent years. Heading the cast was Robert Harris as Major-General Stanley. A former Jerusalemite, Harris was on sabbatical this semester from his position as professor of Bible in New York. G&S stalwart Bezalel Manekin played the Pirate King, while Claire Greenfeld, who made her debut last season as Katisha in The Mikado, portrayed Ruth, the nanny turned piratical maid-of-all-work. Harvey Narrol, who has years of experience with the Light Opera of the Negev, had been recruited as the Sergeant of Police.

Among the musical highlights of the opera, which appealed to both young and old, were the pirates' attack song "Come, friends, who plough the sea" (borrowed as the melody for "Hail, hail, the gang's all here" in America), Mabel's warbling waltz "Poor Wandering One" (featured in the animated film An American Tail), the tongue-twisting patter "The Model of a Modern Major-General," and the resigned chorus "A policeman's lot is not a happy one." Throughout the opera there were delicious parodies of Italian operas, especially Verdi's Il Trovatore and works by Donizetti, as well as some of Sullivan's ingenious contrapuntal masterpieces, such as the double chorus "When the foeman bears his steel."