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
Gilbert and Sullivan (reportedly including a version of "Pinafore" transformed into zarzuela style), Catalan and others. There are many German versions of Gilbert and Sullivan operas, including the popular "Der Mikado". There is even a German version of "The Grand Duke". Some German translations were made by Friedrich Zell and Richard Genée, librettists of "Die Fledermaus" and other Viennese operettas, who even translated one of Sullivan's lesser-known operas, "The Chieftain", as "(Der Häuptling)". Gilbert adapted the stories of "H.M.S. Pinafore" and "The Mikado" into children's books called "The Pinafore Picture Book" and "The Story of The Mikado" giving, in some cases, backstory that