Gilbert and Sullivan place a piece like this on the stage in so complete a fashion." The opera enjoyed a run longer than any of their other joint works except for "H.M.S. Pinafore", "Patience" and "The Mikado". There was a command performance of "The Gondoliers" for Queen Victoria and the royal family at Windsor Castle in 1891, the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera to be so honoured. "The Gondoliers" was Gilbert and Sullivan's last great success. Gilbert and Sullivan sometimes had a strained working relationship, partly caused by the fact that each man saw himself as allowing his work to be subjugated to
Someone That I Used to Love from which it was issued as an "airplay only" single and reached #25 on the Adult Contemporary chart. "Someone That I Used to Love" was released in Europe with the 1981 Barry Gibb duet "What Kind of Fool" as B-side but did not become a major hit, its only evident charting being on the Dutch Single Top 100 with a peak of #86. "Someone That I Used to Love" has also been recorded by Marco Sison (album "Memories"/ 1999) and as an instrumental by pianist Robin Spielberg (album "With a Song in My Heart"/ 2011). Someone That I Used to