After the success of The Sorcerer, Gilbert and Sullivan collaborated on H.M.S. Pinafore for which Sullivan wrote some of his most tuneful and joyous music in spite of suffering with painful kidney stones for much of the time. With his usual attention to detail, Gilbert made sketches of the historic warships in Portsmouth harbor down to the rings and bolts and built a model of the Pinafore deck. He was rewarded by being told by naval authorities that everything was indeed accurate.

H.M.S. Pinafore opened on May 25, 1878. It was not an auspicious beginning. There was a heat wave and the unventilated Opéra Comique was made even hotter by the gas light used to illuminate it. This was during the days of Carte's Comic Opera Theatre and there were constant problems with the other business directors. While the weather was warm the reviews were cool so audiences were sparse. Sullivan had just been made Director of the Promenade Concerts; he played selections from Pinafore there and they were encored five or six times. People went to the theatre to hear the whole thing and, with cooler weather the audiences grew. Sales of sheet music were brisk. In the end, the initial run had a record 571 performances. One of the early midshipmen later became Prime Minister.

Problems continued with the other directors and Carte was finally able to buy them out. However, on the last night of the show, they came to the theatre with vans and tried to remove all of "their " scenery from backstage while the performance was still going on. They created so much noise the the audience feared fire and started to leave. The performance was stopped and George Grossmith, the Sir Joseph, came before the curtain to explain the situation. Meanwhile, the doughty crew of the Pinafore, ably abetted by Buttercup fought the moving men and drove them off, the police restored order and the performance continued.

With Pinafore, the future D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was largely in place and stayed together for many more productions. Its great success led to copyright problems, especially in America. There pirated versions in Boston and Baltimore and eight in New York within five blocks of each other, and great liberties were taken with the piece. Since they were not receiving any royalties from these productions, Gilbert and Sullivan decided to take their own official company to New York. This version was a sensation and a revelation to New Yorkers who had seen it more as a tragedy than a comedy. The producers had learned their lesson. Their next work The Pirates of Penzance opened simultaneously in England and the United States so the copyright was protected.

Thirty years later H.L. Mencken wrote that the operettas of Johann Strauss II were dead,* while Gilbert and Sullivan works had frequent productions. "But Pinafore, through the years, has held the palm. No other comic opera ever written — no other stage play, indeed,Cape Town to Shanghai; in Madrid, Ottawa and Melbourne; even in Paris, Rome and Berlin."

* This was premature!. In particular Die Fledermaus continues to be performed regularly.

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Revised January 2008
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