Gilbert and Sullivan

Abstract

W. S. Gilbert (librettist) and Arthur Sullivan (composer) wrote fourteen works of musical theater from 1871 to 1896, later called the “Savoy Operas” after the Savoy Theatre, purpose‐built in 1881 by producer Richard D'Oyly Carte to house them. The best‐known works in their highly successful series are H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Patience (1881), Iolanthe (1882), and The Mikado (1885). The operas are absurdist, parodic and satirical, but are played in a deadpan style and are punctuated with resonantly affective scenes. They exhibit (and, to some extent, inaugurate) a recognizable strain of English humor that involves a great deal of self‐critique, making fun of English institutions, the law, the professions, gender relations, and empire. The Gilbert and Sullivan operas are one influential precursor of the modern “musical.” References to Gilbert and Sullivan are still widespread in anglophone literature and culture.