The Rose of Persia

The Rose of Persia; or, The Story-Teller and the Slave, is a two-act comic opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by Basil Hood. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 29 November 1899, closing on 28 June 1900 after a profitable run of 211 performances. The opera then toured, had a brief run in America and played elsewhere throughout the English-speaking world.

The original cast included Savoy Theatre regulars Ellen Beach Yaw, Rosina Brandram, Emmie Owen, Louie Pounds, Isabel Jay, Walter Passmore, Henry Lytton and Robert Evett. Later, Decima Moore joined the cast as Scent-of-Lillies.

The opera was regularly revived by amateur theatre groups, particularly in Britain, through the 1950s, but it has been produced only sporadically since then. The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players produced the opera professionally in 2007 at New York City Center.

When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership collapsed after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte struggled to find successful new works for the Savoy Theatre. He was able to bring Gilbert and Sullivan together briefly for two more operas (Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke), neither of which was a great success. He also paired Sullivan with several other librettists, but none of the resulting operas were particularly successful. Carte's other new pieces for the Savoy in the 1890s had done no better. In Basil Hood, Sullivan finally found a congenial new collaborator, giving the Savoy its first significant success since the early 1890s. Sullivan worked together on the new piece, originally entitled Hassan, over the summer of 1899. Unlike W. S. Gilbert, Hood did not direct his own works, and the Savoy's stage manager, Richard Barker, acted as stage director. Costumes were designed by Percy Anderson.

...
Wikipedia