Originally billed ‘an entirely New and Original Modern Comic Opera’, The Sorcerer was the first full-length G&S operatta. In contrast to the vogue for the frothy opéras-bouffes of Offenbach and others, it was moulded on the burlesque ‘Entertainment’, the more restrained genre popularised by Gilbert’s former colleague, singer-turned-impresario Thomas German Reed. The most underrecorded of the G&S operas, between the two world wars The Sorcerer was excluded from the regular D’Oyly Carte repertory. Prior to this complete 1953 release, it made its only appearance on disc, in abridged form, in the 1933 album featuring Darrell Fancourt, Derek Oldham and a select group of prominent inter-war Savoyards.