The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan time to take a triumphant curtain call before the enthusiastic crowd. Nevertheless, Sullivan is unhappy writing comic opera. When Gilbert proposes a new piece involving the device of a magic lozenge, Sullivan objects that he wants to devote himself to serious music. Sullivan's friend, critic Joseph Bennett, writes a libretto for a cantata based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Golden Legend". Meanwhile, Gilbert, inspired by the sight of a Japanese sword hanging in his study, proposes a new plot, and Sullivan begins work. When Bennett goes to see Sullivan, he finds that "The Mikado" is being rehearsed instead of his
Sullivan and Gilbert Jerome and Donna English. Subsequent productions followed. This is not the only show about the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership. A 1938 Broadway show, "Knights of Song", tells the story of the partnership, as do the musicals "The Savoyards", by Donald Madgwick (1971) and "Tarantara Tarantara", by Ian Taylor (1975), and the films "The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan" (1951) and "Topsy-Turvy" (1999). In December 1890, near the end of their collaboration, and still estranged by their famous carpet quarrel, W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan have neither seen nor spoken with each other in months. Now they must supervise