The first home-grown production at the theatre was a musical play in 1871, "Marie", with music by Richard D'Oyly Carte and a libretto by E. Spencer Mott. This accompanied an English adaptation of Molière's "Le Médecin malgré lui". The production was not a success. Opéras bouffes by Hervé, Offenbach and Lecocq, and extravaganzas by F. C. Burnand followed. After short seasons starring the Italian tragedienne Adelaide Ristori and then the English operetta star Emily Soldene, Carte became manager of the theatre in 1874, and presented "The Broken Branch", an English version of Gaston Serpette's operetta "La branch cassée", starring Pauline Rita. Carte's first attempt to found "a permanent abode for Light Opera" failed, and the theatre passed into other hands for the next three years.