This is a revival of a charming light opera – the “G&S” opera that Sullivan didn’t write. W.S. Gilbert’s partner in the enterprise was Alfred Cellier, Richard D’Oyly Carte’s music director at London’s Opera Comique, where Cellier was experienced in conducting the nightly performances of Gilbert & Sullivan’s most successful operas. His closeness to the team included assisting Sullivan in the composition of the overture of The Pirates of Penzance. Thus, when in the late 1880s there came a pause in Gilbert & Sullivan’s collaboration, Gilbert had a new partner ready to step in and take the load. Sadly, it came too late for Cellier, who died on 28 December 1891, before he had finished scoring The Mountebanks. Ivan Caryll, music director of the Lyric Theatre, completed the work, which was first seen in January 1892, and would run for 229 performances with a provincial tour. This sumptuous recording – featuring the BBC Singers, BBC Concert Orchestra and fourteen of the UK’s leading young operatic singers, all under conductor John Andrews’ expert direction – demonstrates that this late Gilbert opera with a different collaborator is a masterpiece in its own right. Cellier’s Suite Symphonique (1878) is also included, the fourth movement of which would later become the overture for The Mountebanks.