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Starting with Trial by Jury in 1875, William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Seymour Sullivan enjoyed a run of 11 or so successful operas/operettas which are largely popular even today.
People across the world still enjoy tunes and songs from The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe (my own favourite - I once played one of the Lords), Princess Ida, The Mikado (possibly the funniest and most popular opera ever), Ruddigore, The Yeomen of the Guard and The Gondoliers (which, however, was not very successful in the USA and was re-christened there The Gone Dollars).
Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke followed; but the tensions within their working relationship - it would be fair to say that at times they hated, never mind disliked, each other - broke the spell of their success, and these last two are rarely performed today.
Their secret is a mixture of verbal wit - Gilbert, who wrote the words, was at least as talented as Sir Thomas Beecham in this regard - and tuneful, uncomplicated, workmanlike, timeless music from Sullivan; which on close inspection often reveals sly references to other composers (J. S. Bach is quoted at least once in The Mikado), which are the equivalent of Gilbert's ever-incisive verbal parodies.
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There's bound to be someone out there who thinks this must be a typo for 'Gilbert O'Sullivan'...
May I add some description to accompany your well-chosen picture (Robert Morley playing W.S. Gilbert (L) and Maurice Evans as A.S. Sullivan, The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan, 1953)?
Er… I don't know what happened then, but apparently I have an evil twin. In the 'members who voted' section I can see two avatars of me plus one lackadaisy and the tally of votes jumped from one to three!
Holy cripes, Finrod. You've duplicated yourself!
You've found a once-in-a-million site quirk! ;D
Stranger and atranger! I just clicked on 'OK' to delete the second one - and the first one vanished!
I can see one avatar now and the vote tally is correct at two. I'm recording all this here for the bug-hunters, who no doubt will read this shortly.
I might add that I feel much better, now that I'm whole again.