Recorded 1953 - Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer Peter DempseyThe Sorcerer opened at the Opera Comique in London on 17th November 1877 to a successful initial run of 178 performances. The first full-length G & S comedy, it was sequentially their third collaboration, the two-act Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old, having been their earliest. The music shows Sullivan at his most carefree and ebullient the joyous light-heartedness of the tea-party the soaring melodies he sets to the tenor lead´s somewhat spurious moralising and the skilfully handled, dazzlingly fast Act II quintet all rank among his finest pieces. Previous re-issues of the Decca / D’Oyly Carte recordings on Naxos Historical have received countless critical plaudits `[The soloists revel] in their parts in a way that still sounds fresh. It’s an impression greatly enhanced by the deft conducting of another veteran, Isidore Godfrey.´ David Mellor, The Mail on Sunday on 8110196 (2CD). `Good news for Anglophiles – the great Gilbert and Sullivan recordings of the late 1940s are on their way back into the catalogue, at budget prices and sounding better than ever.´ The Washington Post.