Gilbert and Sullivan he offered a compromise that Sullivan eventually accepted. The two would write a light opera for the Savoy, and at the same time, Sullivan a grand opera ("Ivanhoe") for a new theatre that Carte was constructing to present British grand opera. After a brief impasse over the choice of subject, Sullivan accepted an idea connected with Venice and Venetian life, as "this seemed to me to hold out great chances of bright colour and taking music." "The Gondoliers" (1889) takes place partly in Venice and partly in a kingdom ruled by a pair of gondoliers who attempt to remodel the
Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens is a 1910 fresco by Henry Payne. It was commissioned in 1908 to decorate the Palace of Westminster. It depicts the fictional scene by Shakespeare, of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset being challenged by Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York to choose between the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster. A gouache painting by Payne, "Choosing The Red and White Roses in the Temple Garden" is in the collection of the Birmingham