Editing Gilbert and Sullivan (section)

====''The Pirates of Penzance''====
{{main|The Pirates of Penzance}}
''The Pirates of Penzance'' (New Year's Eve, 1879) also poked fun at [[grand opera]] conventions, sense of duty, family obligation, the "respectability" of civilisation and the peerage, and the relevance of a liberal education. The story also revisits ''Pinafore''{{'}}s theme of unqualified people in positions of authority, in the person of the [[Major General's Song|"modern Major-General"]] who has up-to-date knowledge about everything except the military. The Major-General and his many daughters escape from the tender-hearted Pirates of Penzance, who are all orphans, on the false plea that he is an orphan himself. The pirates learn of the deception and re-capture the Major-General, but when it is revealed that the pirates are all [[peerage|peers]], the Major-General bids them: "resume your ranks and legislative duties, and take my daughters, all of whom are beauties!"<ref>Bradley (1999), p. 261</ref>

The piece premiered in New York rather than London, in an (unsuccessful) attempt to secure the American copyright,<ref>Samuels, Edward. [http://www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/isc10.htm "International Copyright Relations"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081028222322/http://www.edwardsamuels.com/illustratedstory/isc10.htm |date=28 October 2008 }} in ''The Illustrated Story of Copyright'', Edwardsamuels.com, accessed 19 September 2011. Note the box "When Gilbert and Sullivan attacked the 'Pirates.{{'"}}</ref> and was another big success with both critics and audiences.<ref>Perry, Helga. [http://www.savoyoperas.org.uk/pirates/pp2.html "Transcription of an opening night review in New York"], Savoyoperas.org.uk, 27 November 2000, accessed 27 May 2009</ref> Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte tried for many years to control the American performance copyrights over their operas, without success.<ref name=Zvi/><ref>In one unsuccessful attempt, the partners hired an American, George Lowell Tracy, to create the piano arrangement of the scores of ''[[Princess Ida]]'' and ''[[The Mikado]]'', hoping that he would obtain rights that he could assign to them. See, Murrell, Pam. [https://blogs.loc.gov/music/2020/08/gilbert-sullivans-american-ally "Gilbert & Sullivan’s American Ally"], In the Muse, US Library of Congress, 5 August 2020.</ref> Nevertheless, ''Pirates'' was a hit both in New York, again spawning numerous imitators, and then in London, and it became one of the most frequently performed, translated and parodied Gilbert and Sullivan works, also enjoying successful 1981 [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]<ref>[[Frank Rich|Rich, Frank]]. [https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/09/theater/stage-pirates-of-penzance-on-broadway.html "Stage: ''Pirates of Penzance'' on Broadway"]. ''The New York Times'', 9 January 1981, accessed 2 July 2010</ref> and 1982 West End revivals by [[Joseph Papp]] that continue to influence productions of the opera.<ref>''[[Theatre Record]]'', 19 May 1982 to 2 June 1982, p. 278</ref>

In 1880, Sullivan's [[cantata]] ''[[The Martyr of Antioch]]'' premiered at the [[Leeds Festival (classical music)|Leeds Triennial Music Festival]], with a libretto adapted by Sullivan and Gilbert from an 1822 epic poem by [[Henry Hart Milman]] concerning the 3rd-century martyrdom of [[Margaret the Virgin|St. Margaret of Antioch]]. Sullivan became the conductor of the Leeds festival beginning in 1880 and conducted the performance. The [[Carl Rosa Opera Company]] staged the cantata as an opera in 1898.<ref>Stone, David. [http://www.gsarchive.net/whowaswho/C/CunninghamRobert.htm Robert Cunningham (1892–93)], Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 4 September 2009, accessed 25 May 2017</ref>