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
Gilbert and Sullivan group formed in 1901 in Philadelphia, continues to perform today. In 1948, "Life" magazine reported that about 5,000 performances of Gilbert and Sullivan operas were given annually in the US, exceeding the number of performances of Shakespeare plays. After the copyrights on the operas expired, other professional companies were free to perform and record the operas. Many performing companies arose to produce the works, such as Gilbert and Sullivan for All in Britain and Light Opera Works in the U.S., and existing companies, such as English National Opera, Carl Rosa Opera Company and Australian Opera, added Gilbert and Sullivan to