Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack, is one of the earliest plays written by W.S. Gilbert, his first solo stage success. The work is a musical burlesque of Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore", and the music was arranged by Mr. Van Hamme. It opened at the St James's Theatre on 29 December 1866, the last item in a long evening, following a farce and Dion Boucicault's new play "Hunted Down". "Dulcamara" ran for a successful 120 nights. The popularity of the piece encouraged further commissions for opera burlesques from Gilbert,
The Wicked World Mall Gazette", which had called "The Wicked World" indecent because of the references to "mortal love" in the script. Gilbert lost the case, but he had the satisfaction of having his play found inoffensive in a court of law. Like a number of Gilbert's blank-verse plays, "The Wicked World" treats the subject of the consequences that ensue when an all-female world is disrupted by men, and the romantic complications they bring. His plays "The Princess" (1870) and "Broken Hearts" (1875), and his operas "Iolanthe" (1882) and "Princess Ida" (1884), are all treatments of this basic idea. Stedman calls this a