Gilbert and sullivan selected biography examples

Playwright/lyricist William S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Arthur S. Sullivan (1842-1900) defined operetta in VictorianEngland with a series of their internationally successful and timeless works.

Their first major hit was HMS Pinafore (1878), satirizing the Royal Navy and the British obsession with social status.

The Pirates of Penzance (1879), written in a fit of pique at American copyright pirates, also poked fun at romantic melodrama, sense of duty, family obligation, and the relevance of a liberal education.

Gilbert and sullivan selected biography examples

Patience (1881) satirized the aesthetic movement in general and the poet and aesthete Oscar Wilde in particular. Iolanthe (1882) pokes fun at English law and at the House of Lords. Ruddigore (1887) is a topsy-turvy take on the Victorian Melodrama, and viciously satirizes that entire genre.

The Yeomen of the Guard (1888), their only joint work with a tragic ending, concerns a strolling jester who finds himself embroiled i