National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company music directors for the company. In 2014, the festival registered the company with Companies House as the National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. The company's performances are accompanied by the festival's National Festival Orchestra. It generally presents four productions each year at the festival, and the festival sells videos of most of its productions. In 2018, in connection with the 25th anniversary of the International G&S Festival, the company is presenting six productions in Harrogate, Buxton and on tour. Uniquely among professional companies in Britain, other than D'Oyly Carte, the National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company has presented all 13
Gilbert and Sullivan performing groups "support the culture of music and the drama. They are now accepted as useful training schools for the legitimate stage, and from the volunteer ranks have sprung many present-day favourites." Cellier and Bridgeman attributed the rise in quality and reputation of the amateur groups largely to "the popularity of, and infectious craze for performing, the Gilbert and Sullivan operas". The National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA) was founded in 1899. It reported, in 1914, that nearly 200 British troupes were performing Gilbert and Sullivan that year, constituting most of the amateur companies in the country (this figure included