D'Oyly Carte Opera Company Programme

The partnership of W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan began in 1871. The manager of the Gaiety Theatre asked Sullivan to compose music for a Christmas piece by Gilbert; the result was Thespis. After a respectable run for 63 performances the two went their separate ways.

Richard D’Oyly Carte was the manager of the Royalty Theatre in Soho and he remembered the work of G&S and in 1875 he brought the two together again to provide him with a curtain raiser for Offenbach’s La Perichole. They wrote the one act drama Trial by Jury, which soon became a huge success.

This left D’Oyly Carte in no doubt that the collaboration of these two men could serve to realise his own ambition, to present good English comic opera on the London stage.