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 many of which were familiar from European opera (and some of which grew out of Gilbert's earlier association with the German Reeds): the heroic protagonist (tenor) and his love-interest (soprano); the older woman with a secret or a sharp tongue (contralto); the baffled lyric baritone—the girl's father; and a classic villain (bass-baritone). Gilbert and Sullivan added the element of the comic patter-singing character. With the success of "H.M.S. Pinafore", the D'Oyly Carte repertory and production system was cemented, and each opera would make use of these stock character types. Before "The Sorcerer", Gilbert had constructed his plays around the established