The English composer Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900) collaborated with the librettist Sir William Gilbert to produce operettas that are the finest examples of light, satirical comedy in the English musical theater.

Arthur Sullivan had a thorough schooling in music, beginning early with instruction from his father, who was then bandmaster at the Royal Military College in London. His studies continued at the Chapel Royal, where he was enrolled as a chorister at the age of 12, then at the Royal Academy of Music, and at the Leipzig Conservatory (1858-1861). It was a musical education in the conservative German mode of the time, which was as strongly entrenched in England as in Germany itself.

Sullivan then entered on a career marked by versatility and enormous popular success. At first he earned his way as an organist. Later he turned to conducting and held a variety of posts, notably as...