his satire in the operas, was blunted with gentle humour. As Gilbert scholar Andrew Crowther explains, Gilbert characteristically combines his criticisms with comic entertainment, which renders them more palatable, while at the same time underlining their truth: "By laughing at a joke you show that you accept its premise." Theatrical critic Allardyce Nicoll compared J. W. Wells' speech about blessings being less popular than curses to Mr. Hen's satiric auction speech in The Historical Register for the Year 1736 by Henry Fielding. The characters in The Sorcerer have family names that characterise them. Pointdextre is French for dexter point, a heraldic term; Sangazure is French for blue blood. Partlet means hen. The two characters sing a duet, "Welcome, joy, adieu to sadness!" that contrasts and combines a "Mozart-like minuet" and rapid-fire patter. Other musical numbers that characterise the opera are the quintet in Act II, "I rejoice that it's decided", which is "one of the prettiest things Sullivan ever wrote in the Mendelssohnian manner ... while in the duet that follows between Mr. Wells and Lady Sangazure there is a divertingly sepulchral andante and a no less comic tarentello-like allegro". The Sorcerer has certain technical difficulties in its production. It is the only Savoy opera to require a trapdoor, which many modern theatres do not have, and requires a pyrotechnical effect for a flash in the incantation scene. In addition to Gilbert's story, An Elixir of Love, critics have traced several ideas in the opera to earlier sources. The concept of a love philtre was widespread in nineteenth century opera, and a philtre that causes people to fall in love with the first person whom they see is found in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The idea of depicting the sorcerer as a respectable tradesman is comparable to the respectable friar in E. L. Blanchard's 1863 burlesque, Harlequin and Friar Bacon, who is described as a "Licensed Dealer in Black Art". A drinking-chorus with tea instead of alcoholic drink appeared in Gilbert's The Merry Zingara (1868), a burlesque of The Bohemian Girl. In "My name Is John Wellington Wells", Gilbert reused rhymes from one of his Bab Ballads, The Student. Some commentators have argued that the opera's relatively low popularity is due to satire that relies on Victorian era class distinctions; it may not be clear to the modern audience why a baronet cannot marry a pew-opener, while in the