Whilst William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan were both respected in their own right and during their own time, Gilbert as a playwright and Sullivan as a composer, their collaboration under the management of D�Oyly Carte proved an inspired combination in the late Victorian period. Gilbert�s fantastical plots together with Sullivan�s inventive settings have come to epitomise much of what we consider to be British culture in the 19th century. Indeed, so great was this institution that The D�Oyly Carte Opera Company is still performing the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan today, and so are many other companies, both amateur and professional. These excerpts, from 1948�1954, are recorded as they were originally intended, in the great tradition of The D�Oyly Carte Opera Company.