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 acting, shunned self-conscious interaction with the audience, and insisted on a standard of characterisation where the characters were never aware of their own absurdity. Gilbert insisted that his actors know their words perfectly and obey his stage directions, which was something new to many actors of the day. Sullivan personally oversaw the musical preparation. The result was a new crispness and polish in the English musical theatre. As Jessie Bond wrote later: "H.M.S. Pinafore" ran in London for 571 performances, the second longest run of any musical theatre piece in history up to that time (after the operetta "Les cloches