The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan at Windsor Castle but astonishes Sullivan by choosing to hear "The Gondoliers". Apart from Gilbert, Sullivan comes to realise that his true gifts lie with light music. Richard and Helen Carte toast the arrival of the twentieth century, hoping for a revival of the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership. Stopping by at a rehearsal for a revival of "The Yeomen of the Guard", Gilbert runs into Sullivan, after having been apart for years. Sullivan is ill and using a wheelchair. The two men make up and propose taking a curtain call together with Carte, all three of them in wheelchairs. During
Gilbert and Sullivan began to play parlour music at home and more theatres and concert halls opened. In 1874, Gilbert wrote a short libretto on commission from producer-conductor Carl Rosa, whose wife would have played the leading role, but her death in childbirth cancelled the project. Not long afterwards, Richard D'Oyly Carte was managing the Royalty Theatre and needed a short opera to be played as an afterpiece to Offenbach's "La Périchole". Carte knew about Gilbert's libretto for Rosa and suggested that Sullivan write a score for it. Gilbert read the piece to Sullivan in February 1875, and the composer was delighted with