Background
When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership disbanded after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte was forced to find new works to present at the Savoy Theatre. This was the first non-Gilbert and Sullivan "Savoy Opera", but it was designed to resemble its G&S predecessors, in particular The Mikado, with its exotic oriental setting. The Times review of 1 July 1891 noted:
- ...Both Mr. George Dance and Mr. Edward Solomon have... subordinated their own individualities to the traditions of the theatre, and have produced a work which, if brought out anonymously, would be unhesitatingly classed, by superficial observers at all events, among the rest of the "Gilbert and Sullivan" operas. It may, indeed, be doubted whether the older collaborators would have followed their own example so closely as their successors have done.
Carte knew Solomon well, and he had presented Solomon's 1881 comic opera, Claude Duval, on tour in 1882. In 1893, Solomon's Billee Taylor (originally produced in 1880), also joined the D'Oyly Carte repertoire. Desprez had written several curtain raisers for the Savoy during the 1880s. Dance was the younger collaborator, and later he was responsible for the phenomenally successful musical A Chinese Honeymoon, which ran for more than a thousand performances at the turn of the century.
Read more about this topic: The Nautch Girl
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