National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company
The National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company is an English professional repertory company that performs Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. Founded in 1995 to perform at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, the company generally stages three or four productions each summer, giving up to 16 performances in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and also touring.
National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company poster
The Royal Hall, Harrogate, the company's main venue since 2014
Buxton Opera House, site of the festival from 1994 to 2013, is still used by the company to premiere its annual productions.
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known.
W. S. Gilbert
Arthur Sullivan
One of Gilbert's illustrations for his Bab Ballad "Gentle Alice Brown"
Poster for Ages Ago, during a rehearsal for which Frederic Clay introduced Gilbert to Sullivan