The Gondoliers was the last great success of the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership. Written in a spirit of conciliatory accord following a period of particularly bitter artistic estrangement, it carries every indication of having been created - as one first night reviewer observed - 'con amore'. Yet the peace and goodwill amounted to no more than a lull before the tempestuous 'carpet quarrel': a Savoy drama played in open court to anything but public approval.

Sullivan's attitude towards the composition of operettas was decidedly ambivalent. These works, upon which he lavished so much of his creative genius, were central to his output throughout his career - as well as being the main source of his material prosperity.

Yet he continued to feel that the works written with Gilbert restricted his musical scope and other, loftier, musical forms were more worthy of his attention. Sullivan had warmed to the 'very human' libretto of The Yeomen of the Guard and responded with a distinctly operatic score. Yet even this did not go far enough. ‘The music’, he insisted, ‘must occupy a more important place'.

Gilbert believed that public response to Yeomen did not encourage production of ‘something more earnest still’. Surely, he argued, Sullivan could satisfy his ambitions by writing grand opera for the audience that wanted it without having to abandon the lighter form of operetta that had brought them such success at the Savoy? Stalemate ensued.

Eventually, however, the opportunity to write a grand opera on the subject of Ivanhoe, for production in Richard D'Oyly Carte’s newly built Royal English Opera House (now the Palace Theatre), brought Sullivan round to Gilbert’s point of view. Making his peace with the author, he expressed his liking for the Venetian subject that he knew Gilbert had been considering. Just over seven months later, on 7th December 1889, The Gondoliers opened at the Savoy Theatre.

Sullivan's diary records the première performance: 'Everything went splendidly with immense 'go' and spirit - right up to the end Gilbert and I got a tremendous ovation - we have never had such an audience and never such a brilliant first night. It looks as if the opera were going to have a long run and be a great success'. His instinct proved correct.

The Gondoliers achieved a remarkable initial run of 554 performances. It was even honoured by a Royal Command Performance at Windsor before Queen Victoria - who on that occasion certainly was amused. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, audiences showed less than their usual enthusiasm for the latest offering from the Savoy team. Considered a bad investment for D'Oyly Carte, it soon became known in New York as 'the gone-dollars'.

If The Gondoliers has remained one of the most popular Gilbert and Sullivan collaborations, it was also one of the most congenial for the partners themselves. Having managed to cajole Sullivan back to the Savoy, Gilbert was anxious to ensure that the composer had no cause for regrets.

He provided alternative versions of lyrics and gave carte blanche for lines to be omitted – he even offered to write completely new material to please the composer. The structure of the operetta also reveals Gilbert's willingness to concede prominence to the music: significantly more of the playing time is taken up by music than in any previous full-length piece (the one-act Trial by Jury which has no spoken dialogue is a case apart). The decidedly musical ambience is established right at the beginning in a scene that sets the first stages of the drama within a continuous sequence of brilliantly evocative music lasting virtually 20 minutes. It is easy to see why Frank Burnand (editor of Punch and librettist of Cox and Box) should write to Sullivan, 'Place some of it, costumes and all, on the stage as an extract without saying from what, and they'd say Grand Opera'.

Dance rhythms abound, distinctively characterising Sullivan's music of The Gondoliers. There are the waltz tunes of the opening sequence and the courtly pastiche of the gavotte in Act II, but the most striking feature is the wealth of sparkling Mediterranean measures: the saltarello, tarantella and cachucha - the latter perhaps indicating the proximity of Barataria to the Spanish mainland! The duet, ‘We’re called gondolieri’, is outstanding in every respect, but not least for its authentic Italian ring - albeit Neapolitan rather than Venetian. As well as these exotic elements in the score there is also music in the composer's more familiar vein. The glee 'Try we life-long' is closely related to the pseudo-madrigals of, for example, The Mikado and Ruddigore. 'In enterprise of martial kind' and 'Rising early' are species of patter-song - but without quite the verbal frenzy of earlier models - and 'Take a pair of sparkling eyes' maintains a vein of tenor balladry stretching back to The Sorcerer and extending into Sullivan's drawing-room output.

Gilbert's libretto re-uses the baby-swapping idea from HMS Pinafore and combines it with a kidnapping that brings to mind the author’s own claim to have been captured at an early age by Neapolitan bandits. But if something in the story of The Gondoliers recalls an early work, the complete recovery of that sense of unclouded gaiety so characteristic of the librettist’s earlier operettas is far more important. Gone are the sombre overtones that colour The Yeomen of the Guard and Ruddigore. Gilbert's exaltation of youth and love is sincere; and although the libretto has its satirical elements, these never overshadow the essentially sunny, optimistic and romantic outlook.

In many respects The Gondoliers is one of Gilbert's finest, most balanced and most human plays.

Soon after the first night, Sullivan wrote admiringly to Gilbert: 'in such a perfect book as The Gondoliers you shine with an individual brilliancy which no other writer can hope to attain.' Gilbert, for his part, knew that the work they had created contained the vital spark of immortality. 'It gives one the chance', he wrote in reply, 'of shining right through the twentieth century with a reflected light.' Elated by post-première euphoria, Gilbert may have looked forward to an artistic relationship with his fickle composer that would, at last, be on a firm and stable footing. It was not to be. Soon Gilbert was questioning the expense of a new carpet front-of-house at the Savoy Theatre.

D'Oyly Carte had charged this to Gilbert and Sullivan as part of the production expenses but the author felt it to be no part of their liability. Sullivan refused to enter the lists under Gilbert's banner. Gilbert took the matter to court and won - but Sullivan's lack of support rankled. The partners did collaborate on two last operettas, Utopia Limited and The Grand Duke. Neither of these matched the success of earlier works. The great days were over. Gilbert and Sullivan were never to transcend The Gondoliers.

c David Russell Hulme 2002