The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan cantata. He informs Sullivan that, if he would get around to finishing "The Golden Legend", Queen Victoria will attend the premiere. Likewise, when Gilbert calls on Sullivan, he sees him rehearsing "The Golden Legend", as Bennett stands watch. When Bennett dozes off, Sullivan turns back to "The Mikado". After both works debut, Sullivan is knighted. The Queen inquires if he will write a grand opera. Just before the premiere of their next opera, "Ruddigore", Sullivan asks Gilbert to write the libretto for his first grand opera. Gilbert declines, stating that in such a work the words play second fiddle to
Gilbert and Sullivan of the opera. In 1880, Sullivan's cantata "The Martyr of Antioch" premiered at the Leeds Triennial Music Festival, with a libretto modified by Gilbert from an 1822 epic poem by Henry Hart Milman concerning the 3rd century martyrdom of St. Margaret of Antioch. Sullivan became the conductor of the Leeds festival beginning in 1880 and conducted the performance. The Carl Rosa Opera Company staged the cantata as an opera in 1898. "Patience" (1881) satirised the aesthetic movement in general and its colourful poets in particular, combining aspects of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Oscar Wilde, James McNeill Whistler and