ABSTRACT
The arrival in america of the first Gilbert and Sullivan opera, H.M.S. Pinafore, in the 1878-79 season, led to a veritable eruption of comic opera. Before Gilbert and Sullivan showed the English-speaking audience what it had been missing, comic opera had been largely the esoteric diversion of those who enjoyed hearing it performed in French or German. For fifteen years or more, French opéra-bouffe had been a source of special delight among connoisseurs, among whom it shared favor with Italian opera, and, in lesser degree, German light opera.
