ABSTRACT
William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were tempted several times to dress their comic operas in the fashions and musical styles of Japanese, Italian, and German. Their operas were produced during 1875–96, a period that witnessed the second wave of British imperialism and the growing threat to English national identity posed by imperial federation. This chapter explores what they tell about the attitude of Gilbert and Sullivan, and that of the Victorian middle class as a whole, towards the vexed question of English national identity. The years during which Gilbert and Sullivan collaborated were witness to European struggles for power, the 'scramble for Africa', the Sudan War 1882–98, and the Great Depression. The 'second wave' of British imperialism that began in the 1880s was motivated largely by the fear of losing markets in a period of economic depression. The chapter considers how the Savoy operas relate to what it meant to be English in the late nineteenth century.
