the lass that loved a sailor

Premiering at the Opera Comique of London in Westminster on this day in 1878, the two-act musical theatre piece with musical arrangement by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W.S. Gilbert, H.M.S. Pinafore was their fourth collaboration (see also here and here) but first to earn international acclaim, with an initial run of five hundred seventy performances. Retroactively referred to as the Savoy Operas, Gilbert and Sullivan’s works are considered foundational to musical theatre and are still staged and enjoyed to this day with numerous references and homages (too many to list) in popular culture.