right|thumb|300px|From Act I of the 1907 [[D'Oyly Carte Opera Company|D'Oyly Carte production at the Savoy Theatre]]
The Gondoliers; or, The King of Barataria is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 7 December 1889 and ran for a very successful 554 performances (at that time the fifth longest-running piece of musical theatre in history), closing on 30 June 1891. This was the twelfth comic opera collaboration of fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan.
The story of the opera concerns brothers Marco and Giuseppe Palmieri, a pair of Venetian gondoliers who are told that one of them is heir to the throne of the fictional kingdom of Barataria; until it can be discovered by the Grand Inquisitor which of them is the heir, they must rule jointly. Unbeknownst to the brothers, who have just married Venetian farm girls, the heir was wed in infancy to the daughter of the Spanish Duke of Plaza-Toro, who is herself in love with her father's servant. A subplot concerns the impoverished Duke attempting to improve his finances by forming a limited liability company.
The Gondoliers was Gilbert and Sullivan's last great success. In this opera, Gilbert returns to the satire of class distinctions figuring in many of his earlier librettos. The libretto also reflects Gilbert's fascination with the "Stock Company Act", highlighting what he saw as the absurd convergence of natural persons and legal entities, which plays an even larger part in the next opera, Utopia Limited. As in several of their earlier operas, by setting The Gondoliers comfortably far away from England, Gilbert was emboldened to direct sharper criticism at the nobility and the institution of the monarchy itself.
Background
Genesis of the opera
thumb|Barrington and Pounds as Giuseppe and Marco
The Gondoliers was preceded by the most serious of the Gilbert and Sullivan collaborations, The Yeomen of the Guard. On 9 January 1889, three months into that opera's fourteen-month run, Sullivan informed the librettist that he "wanted to do some dramatic work on a larger musical scale", that he "wished to get rid of the 'strongly marked rhythm', and 'rhymed' couplets, and have words that would have a chance of developing 'musical effects'." Gilbert counselled strongly that the partnership should continue on its former course: