Page "Richard D'Oyly Carte" Paragraph 31

After Patience, Carte produced Iolanthe, which opened in 1882.

During its run, in February 1883, Carte signed a five-year partnership agreement with Gilbert and Sullivan, obliging them to create new operas for him upon six months ' notice.

Sullivan had not intended to immediately write a new work with Gilbert, but he suffered a serious financial loss when his broker went bankrupt in November 1882 and must have felt the long-term contract necessary for his security.

Gilbert scholar Andrew Crowther comments, " Effectively, contract made and Sullivan Carte's employees – a situation which created its own resentments.

" The partnership's next opera, Princess Ida, opened in January 1884.

Carte soon saw that Ida was running weakly at the box office and invoked the agreement to call upon his partners to write a new opera.

The musical establishment constantly pressured Sullivan to abandon comic opera in favour of serious music, and after he was knighted in 1883, the pressure only increased.

He soon regretted having signed the five-year contract.

In March 1884, Sullivan told Carte that " it is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself.