The Gilbert and Sullivan Light Opera Company of Long Island a desire to try new projects and convinced that it had been depending too much upon “the Big Three,” the Company undertook a complete cycle of the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, beginning with Princess Ida in 1992 and concluding in 2004 with The Mikado. The Project, which has been an overwhelming success, has featured the Long Island premieres of four operas—Princess Ida, The Yeomen of the Guard, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke, as well as of the Sullivan/Stephenson operetta The Zoo. In 1995 the Company presented the world premiere of Gayden Wren’s A Gilbert & Sullivan Christmas Carol.
Gilbert and Sullivan of trade between England and Japan, Japanese imports, art and styles became fashionable in London, making the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert said, "I cannot give you a good reason for our... piece being laid in Japan. It... afforded scope for picturesque treatment, scenery and costume, and I think that the idea of a chief magistrate, who is... judge and actual executioner in one, and yet would not hurt a worm, may perhaps please the public." Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert and Sullivan to satirise British politics