“The Yeomen of the Guard” opened on the 3rd October 1888, at the Savoy Theatre and ran for 423 performances.

Whilst many people enjoy Yeomen because of its ever-changing emotional balance of joy and despair, love and sacrifice, it is certainly the most serious of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

The opera ends with a broken-hearted main character and at least two reluctant engagements, rather than the usual armful of marriages. However, there are also plenty of topsy-turvy plot complications, and many believe that the score is Sullivan’s finest, indeed, Gilbert said he regarded it as “the best thing we have done”.

link to the Cambridge University G.& S. website