Gilbert and Sullivan or "entertainments", for Thomas German Reed. At a rehearsal for one of these entertainments, "Ages Ago", in 1870, the composer Frederic Clay introduced Gilbert to his friend, the young composer Arthur Sullivan. Over the next year, before the two first collaborated, Gilbert continued to write humorous verse, stories and plays, including the comic operas "Our Island Home" (1870) and "A Sensation Novel" (1871), and the blank verse comedies "The Princess" (1870), "The Palace of Truth" (1870) and "Pygmalion and Galatea" (1871). Sullivan was born in London on 13 May 1842. His father was a military bandmaster, and by the time
Arthur Sullivan October, "Patience" transferred to the new, larger, state-of-the-art Savoy Theatre, built with the profits of the previous Gilbert and Sullivan works. The rest of the partnership's collaborations were produced at the Savoy, and are widely known as the "Savoy operas". "Iolanthe" (1882), the first new opera to open at the Savoy, was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth hit in a row. Sullivan, despite the financial security of writing for the Savoy, increasingly viewed the composition of comic operas as unimportant, beneath his skills, and also repetitious. After "Iolanthe", Sullivan had not intended to write a new work with Gilbert, but he