By the way, The Sorcerer is a prime example of "is it really a happy ending?"  Alexis is at least as bad as Colonel Fairfax.  He instigates all the confusion, then puts terrible pressure on Aline to go along with his ideas, and blames her when it all goes wrong!  And yet when they end up together, we're supposed to think that's somehow a good thing...

Though at least that was a logical progression for that particular supernatural female, having originated from the lake in the first place.  Unlike Iolanthe

Rusalka - hole in one, and the similarity is just fortuitous.

The libretto with my CDs says "Rusalka climbs down from the willow and stumbles towards Jezibaba": nothing about fish tails.

I'm sure Tony will give you all the gen you need.  In fact if you follow some of his links you will be inundated with recording suggestions.

Gilbert did write to a formula, although of a complex nature, but I feel Sullivan managed to get a different musical character for each work.

At the moment I have a lot of time for Iolanthe: the music seems richer and more complex.  Those Who Know (in Moscow and elsewhere) reckon there are meant to be Wagnerian parallels in the music.  The finale is one of the most complex with  the Fairy Queen's vocal line towering over the entire cast.

The brilliant contrast between female chorus (fairies) and male chorus (House of Lords) is modelled on Patience, the previous work, with female chorus (love sick maidens, all of county family) and male chorus (heavy dragoons).

Patience also includes the parody of Oscar Wilde in the person of the poet Bunthorne.  In order to make Patience a success in the USA, where Wilde was unknown, Richard Doyley Carte paid for Wilde's first lecture trip to the States (I have nothing to declare except my genius.)

Gilbert shows no understanding of the character of Wilde's work, and indeed is philistine mocking of the arty, but I do not find his character of Bunthorne homophobic, although he is clearly not straight.  Sullivan set Bunthorne's song with a wonderful cheeky delicacy, if that's the word I want.

Congratulations!!

I was reading Ellman's biog of Wilde last year, and Carte certainly did fund Wilde's tour of the States.  The knee breeches and the blue and white pottery were certainly from Wilde.

When I was a kid I read somewhere that Bunthorne is Wilde and Grosvernor Swinburne.  But it doesn't really matter, matter, matter, matter...

Second horn parts are rather dull in G&S and the first horn doesn't get many solos. The horns tend to hold on to notes while the other instruments do interesting things, as I mentioned above. Overall it's very effective though - Sullivan certainly knew how to handle the orchestra.

An introduction to Gilbert and Sullivan? I don’t know what this is like but it might be worth a try:

http://www.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=283;3;-1;-1&sku=354444

For an overall view of recordings, as I’ve mentioned above, this is the best site:

http://www.cris.com/~oakapple/gasdisc/

It says it’s not been updated since 2005 but it’s still comprehensive.

G&S recordings tend to fall into the following camps: old D’Oyly Carte, new D’Oyly Carte, Sargent and the so-called Glyndebourne recordings, Mackerras, and miscellaneous. Naturally, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but I would take the plunge and go for the classic D’Oyly Carte set. This handsome boxed set will give you everything from Trial by Jury to The Grand Duke, with some fill-up items thrown in.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sullivan-Gilbert-Opera-Box/dp/B00008LJEO/ref=pd_bbs_14?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1202756134&sr=8-14

I find the Sargent recordings a little dull on the whole and they show their age, but they are available in a boxed set too (not all the operas were recorded):

http://www.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=283;3;-1;-1&sku=354444

The new D’Oyly Carte recordings generally contain a return to the original orchestration and material that was cut, so they are well worth investigating, especially this version of Yeomen:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sullivan-Yeomen-Guard-Sir-Arthur/dp/B000025HXE/ref=sr_1_37?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1202757085&sr=8-37

As for the Mackerras recordings (five of them) I must admit I’ve only heard The Mikado. It’s fine except for liberties taken with Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day, which I can’t bear to listen to. They seem to have been well received though and the five are available separately and in a boxed set.

As for miscellaneous, the New Sadlers Wells Ruddigore is a must.

I agree with Reiner that Yeomen would be a good place to start (it was the first one I saw, aged 13, and I was hooked). Try the new D'Oyly Carte version I've mentioned above if you don't fancy splashing out on boxed sets. The Marriner version, starring Bryn Terfel, Thomas Allen et al is also worth listening to, though I think it's second best.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sullivan-Yeomen-Guard-Sir-Arthur/dp/B00000HY8M

Many thanks for all these suggestions - I feel a visit to Amazon coming on .... 

Let me put the opposite case.  Bunthorne's supposed passion for a dairy maid, Patience, (which she, sensible girl, finds frightening) is a front to keep the love sick maidens (all of county family) at a distance and make him more fascinating.

When he reveals himself in soliloquy he does not mention love.  "My medievalism's affectation, born of a morbid love of admiration."  He is certainly narcissistic, and the passion for Patience can be seen as another affectation.

But in Bunthorne's wonderful following solo (which I suspect Gilbert wrote as a patter song, but with which Sullivan did something much more interesting) he concludes:

"Everyone will say
As you walk your flowery way
If that he's content with a vegetable love that would certainly not suit me,
Why what a most particularly pure young man that pure young man must be."

He is not interested in women, and he is not interested in men either.

And at the end when the entire cast is matched off in couples except for him, Bunthorne "has to be contented with a tulip and lily".

Victorian audiences (and possibly Gilbert himself) may have thought of him as mainly effeminate, and he shows no interest in any male characters, but he is certainly not straight in the conventional sense of the word.

I shudder to think how it could be played...