Gilbert and Sullivan Ida" showed signs of flagging, Carte realised that, for the first time in the partnership's history, no new opera would be ready when the old one closed. On 22 March 1884, he gave Gilbert and Sullivan contractual notice that a new opera would be required in six months' time. In the meantime, when "Ida" closed, Carte produced a revival of "The Sorcerer". The most successful of the Savoy Operas was "The Mikado" (1885), which made fun of English bureaucracy, thinly disguised by a Japanese setting. Gilbert initially proposed a story for a new opera about a magic lozenge that would
National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company Players, Charles Court Opera, and the festival's own National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. In 1995, the operators of the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival formed an opera company to provide festivalgoers with professional productions of the Savoy operas. The company was soon called the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company. It engaged such performers as Richard Suart, Simon Butteriss, Bruce Graham, Gillian Knight, Barry Clark, Michael Rayner, Jill Pert, Gareth Jones, Patricia Leonard, Donald Maxwell, Oliver White, Rebecca Bottone, Ian Belsey and the Opera Babes. John Owen Edwards, David Russell Hulme, David Steadman or Andrew Nicklin have usually served as