Comedy Opera Company
Encouraged by the reception of Trial by Jury, D’Oyly
Carte leased another London theatre, to make it the home of
English comic opera. In 1876 he founded the Comedy Opera Company,
for which Gilbert and Sullivan
agreed to write a full-length opera. The Sorcerer opened
at the Opera Comique in November 1877 and was followed the next
year by H.M.S. Pinafore - another work soon staged
in America in unauthorised versions. Gilbert was so incensed
by this, that piracy inspired the theme of his next libretto,
The Pirates of Penzance. To attempt some hold on copyright,
D’Oyly Carte even had two companies opening it on the
same day in December 1879, in England and New York.
The Savoy Theatre
Their next opera, Patience, or Bunthorne’s Bride,
opened in April 1881, by which time the Comedy Opera Company
had been dissolved and Gilbert, Sullivan and D’Oyly Carte
had become partners. Gilbert and Sullivan operas were now so
popular that D’Oyly Carte built the Savoy Theatre especially
to house them. Patience transferred there in October
and audiences were amazed by the new electric light that had
been installed.
Over the next fifteen years, people flocked to the Savoy Theatre
to see new operas by Gilbert and Sullivan – Iolanthe,
Princess Ida, The Mikado, Ruddigore,
The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke. But the authors were often at loggerheads
with each other and it was generally D’Oyly Carte’s
tact and persuasiveness, and Sullivan’s need for money
to support his lifestyle, that got them back together again.
To appease Sullivan’s desire to write music for grand
opera as well as comic ones, D’Oyly Carte even built a
theatre to house his work, The Royal English Opera House. Sullivan’s
first grand opera, Ivanhoe, with a libretto by Julian
Sturgis, opened in January 1891 but the public never showed
the same enthusiasm for Ivanhoe as they had for the
witty and tuneful works by Gilbert and Sullivan.
Ballad Operas
D’Oyly Carte Collaboration
