Background
When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership collapsed after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte struggled to find successful new works to present at the Savoy Theatre. He was able to bring Gilbert and Sullivan together briefly for two more operas, neither of which was a great success. In fact, after its disappointingly short run, their last piece, The Grand Duke (1896), was the only outright failure of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Arthur Sullivan had produced two operas for the Savoy in the early 1890s with librettists other than W. S. Gilbert, but neither had proved particularly successful, and pieces by other composers, for example Mirette, had fared worse.
Read more about this topic: His Majesty (comic Opera)
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