D'Oyly Carte Opera Company be released from the partnership on several occasions. Nevertheless, they coaxed eight comic operas out of Gilbert and Sullivan in the 1880s. When "Princess Ida" closed after a comparatively short run of nine months, for the first time in the partnership's history, the next opera was not ready. To make matters worse, Gilbert suggested a plot in which people fell in love against their wills after taking a magic lozenge – a scenario that Sullivan had previously rejected, and he now rejected the "lozenge plot" again. Gilbert eventually came up with a new idea and began work in May 1884.
Gilbert and Sullivan place a piece like this on the stage in so complete a fashion." The opera enjoyed a run longer than any of their other joint works except for "H.M.S. Pinafore", "Patience" and "The Mikado". There was a command performance of "The Gondoliers" for Queen Victoria and the royal family at Windsor Castle in 1891, the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera to be so honoured. "The Gondoliers" was Gilbert and Sullivan's last great success. Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes had a strained working relationship, partly caused by the fact that each man saw himself as allowing his work to be subjugated to