The Sorcerer's Apprentice called"), a garbled version of one of Goethe's lines ('), which is often used to describe a situation where somebody summons help or uses allies that he cannot control, especially in politics. The animated 1940 Disney film "Fantasia" popularized the story from Goethe's poem, and the Paul Dukas symphonic poem based on it, in one of eight animated shorts based on classical music. In the piece, which retains the title "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", Mickey Mouse plays the apprentice, and the story follows Goethe's original closely, except that the sorcerer ("Yen Sid", or "Disney" backwards) is stern and angry with his
The Sorcerer revivals, which used a revised libretto. "The Sorcerer" has not been recorded as often as most of the other Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and the recordings have not been generally well received. The 1966 D'Oyly Carte Opera Company recording is considered the best of their efforts to record this opera. The 1982 Brent Walker video is considered to be one of the best of that series and is recommended. More recent professional productions have been recorded on video by the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival. "The Sorcerer" has made its way into popular culture. Isaac Asimov wrote a short story,