The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan, National G&S Opera Company - 2026

The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan
National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company

This spectacular concert is established as a firm Festival favourite and promises glorious music and entertainment. Featuring principal singers from the NGSOC, it celebrates the very best songs from the operas and the three lost Iolanthe songs

Hear Three Rediscovered Songs from Iolanthe

the rare opportunity to hear three long-lost songs from Iolanthe, recently discovered in the British Library by Gilbert & Sullivan researcher Marc Shepherd.

The songs had been presumed lost since the nineteenth century until Shepherd uncovered them in a manuscript score that had remained unnoticed for decades. Entirely new Sullivan music is seldom found, and the recovery of three complete numbers from a single opera is almost unprecedented.

As Shepherd himself observed:

“Lost Gilbert & Sullivan songs aren’t often discovered; finding three at once is like sighting a unicorn.”

The three rediscovered numbers are:

“On You They’d Set a Coronet” — a quartet for Phyllis, Tolloller, Mountararat and the Lord Chancellor, with Chorus of Peers, cut during the rehearsal period.

“My Love for Him Is Dead” — a solo for Phyllis, cut during rehearsals before opening night.

“De Belville Was Regarded as the Crichton of His Age” — Lord Mountararat’s comic song. Although the lyrics were known, the music was believed lost until this year’s discovery.

The Gondoliers

• Dance a Cachucha — The National Festival Orchestra
• We're Called Gondolieri — Alex Aldren and Bruce Graham
• On the Day When I Was Wedded — Gaynor Keeble
• Here Is a Case Unprecedented — Phoebe Smith, Gaynor Keeble, Alex Aldren, Bruce Graham

The Mikado

• Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day — Phoebe Smith, Gaynor Keeble, Alex Aldren, Bruce Graham
• The Sun Whose Rays — Phoebe Smith
• Here's a How-De-Do — Phoebe Smith, Alex Aldren, Simon Butteriss

The Sorcerer

• The Air Is Charged with Amatory Numbers / Time Was — Bruce Graham
• John Wellington Wells — Simon Butteriss
• Family Vault — Gaynor Keeble, Simon Butteriss

HMS Pinafore

• Fair Moon — Bruce Graham
• When I Was a Lad — Simon Butteriss with audience
• Never Mind the Why and Wherefore — Phoebe Smith, Bruce Graham, Simon Butteriss

The Pirates of Penzance

• Oh, Is There Not One Maiden Breast — Alex Aldren with audience
• Poor Wand'ring One — Phoebe Smith with audience
• I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General — Simon Butteriss with audience

Iolanthe

• Iolanthe Overture — The National Festival Orchestra
• On You They'd Set a Coronet — Phoebe Smith, Alex Aldren, Bruce Graham, Simon Butteriss
• My Love for Him Is Dead — Phoebe Smith
• De Belville Was Regarded as the Crichton of His Age — Bruce Graham

Patience

• Sad Is That Woman's Lot — Gaynor Keeble
• When I Go Out of Door — Simon Butteriss, Bruce Graham

Princess Ida

• Minerva — Phoebe Smith
• The Woman of the Wisest Wit — Phoebe Smith, Gaynor Keeble, Alex Aldren, Simon Butteriss, Bruce Graham

The Yeomen of the Guard

• A Man Who Would Woo a Fair Maid — Phoebe Smith, Gaynor Keeble, Alex Aldren
• Hereupon We're Both Agreed — Simon Butteriss, Bruce Graham

Ruddigore

• The Battle's Roar Is Over — Phoebe Smith, Alex Aldren
• My Eyes Are Fully Open — Gaynor Keeble, Simon Butteriss, Bruce Graham
• The Night I Appeared as Macbeth — Kevin Gauntlett

Utopia

• There's a Little Group of Isles Beyond the Waves — Full Company