Iolanthe

Background
"Iolanthe", or "The Peer and the Peri", opened at the Savoy Theatre on November 25, 1882, three nights after the final performance of Patience at the same theatre, and ran for 398 performances. Gilbert had taken pot shots at the aristocracy before, but in this "fairy opera," the House of Lords is lampooned as a bastion of the ineffective, privileged and dim-witted. The political party system and other institutions also come in for a dose of satire. Yet, both author and composer managed to couch the criticism among such bouncy, amiable absurdities that it is all received as good fun. Both Gilbert and Sullivan were at the height of their creative powers in 1882, and many people feel that Iolanthe, their seventh work together, is the most perfect of their collaborations.
Plot
Twenty-five years before the setting of the opera, Iolanthe, a fairy, had committed the capital offence of marrying a mortal. The Queen of the Fairies had commuted the sentence to lifelong exile, on condition that Iolanthe left her husband and never saw him again. Her son, Strephon, has grown up as a shepherd, half fairy, half mortal. Strephon loves Phyllis, who is a Ward of the Court of Chancery. She loves Strephon, but is unaware of his mixed origin. Meanwhile, the entire House of Lords is enamoured of Phyllis, especially the Lord Chancellor, her guardian. At the start of the opera, the fairies persuade the Queen to pardon Iolanthe, and she returns, introducing Strephon to her sisters. The Queen agrees to help when Strephon announces that he wishes to marry Phyllis, despite the Lord Chancellor's refusal.