Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company its first production, "The Mikado", received such a favourable response that they changed their name to Derby Gilbert & Sullivan Company to more clearly reflect the new city base and repertoire of the company. In the 1980s, the company played a couple of 'guest weeks' at the Buxton Opera House with "The Mikado" and later "The Yeomen of the Guard". Under the direction of co-founder Andrew Nicklin, the company began to build a reputation for presenting updated, or "non-traditional" G&S productions. Under Nicklin, the company took "The Mikado" to The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton, England, in 1996,
Gilbert and Sullivan the composer for his successful oratorio, "The Golden Legend", considered the score to "Yeomen" to be Sullivan's finest, including its overture, which was written in sonata form, rather than as a sequential pot-pourri of tunes from the opera, as in most of his other overtures. The "Daily Telegraph" wrote: "Yeomen" was a hit, running for over a year, with strong New York and touring productions. During the run, on 12 March 1889, Sullivan wrote to Gilbert, Sullivan insisted that the next opera must be a grand opera. Gilbert did not feel that he could write a grand opera libretto, but