By the spring of 1877, the English light-opera team of W.S. Gilbert and Richard Sullivan had established a strong reputation based on several well-received earlier works, but they had yet to have a true smash hit. That would change on May 25, 1878, when Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore premiered at the Opéra-Comique in London, beginning a near-record run of 571 performances in its original production.
Gilbert and Sullivan began work on HMS Pinafore in early 1878 on the heels of a moderately successful operetta called The Sorcerer. Pinafore would be their fourth professional collaboration after being brought together by the impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte, who built a theater and created his own opera company to stage their works. The story of Pinafore concerns a blowhard First Lord of the Admiralty who is thwarted in his attempt to woo and marry the beautiful young daughter of a British Navy ship’s captain due to her love for a lowly enlisted sailor. In typical Gilbert and Sullivan fashion, the plot reveals that the lowly sailor was, in fact, switched at birth with the ship’s captain, and is therefore of sufficient social standing to wed the no-longer-a-captain’s daughter. It was not just the topsy-turvy plot of Pinafore, but also its memorable score of satirical and sentimental songs— including “We sail the ocean blue,” “Now give three cheers,” “When I was a lad,” “He is an Englishman”—that made it so instantly popular with audiences.
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