than any other Savoy opera except for The Mikado. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company generally played Trial by Jury as a companion piece with the opera. In America, The Sorcerer was played as early as 1879 by the Adah Richmond Comedy Opera Troupe at Boston's Gaiety Theatre. In Australia, its first authorised production opened on 22 May 1886 at the Theatre Royal, Melbourne, produced by J. C. Williamson, starring Frank Thornton, Nellie Stewart and Alice Barnett, conducted by Alfred Cellier, although unauthorised productions had appeared by 1879. In the early years of the 20th century, however, The Sorcerer gradually fell out of favour in Britain. As discussed below, it draws on an older theatrical tradition and satirises social and operatic conventions that are less accessible to modern audiences than the ones explored in the more famous G&S works starting with H.M.S. Pinafore. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which had exclusive rights to the opera in Britain, dropped The Sorcerer in 1901, and its principal repertory company did not play the piece again until 1916, after which it made its first professional London appearance in over twenty years in 1919. The company played the opera only intermittently during the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1938 and 1939, it was performed only in the company's London seasons, and only for a handful of performances. During the winter of 1941–42, the scenery and costumes for The Sorcerer and three other operas were destroyed in enemy action. The opera was not revived professionally in the UK until 1971. Amateur British companies followed suit, as many dropped it from their repertory of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas during these three decades, although American companies often continued their regular rotation of the eleven operas from Trial through The Gondoliers. Outside the U.K., however, the opera continued to be played regularly in Australasia by the J. C. Williamson Opera Company, and it was revived on Broadway in 1915 with DeWolf Hopper in the title role. It was played by the American Savoyards in the United States from the 1950s and by other professional companies in the U.S. thereafter. After 1970, The Sorcerer was included in the D'Oyly Carte repertory through the 1975 centenary season, then dropped for several years, then restored for the company's last few seasons before it closed in 1982. Amateur companies that had dropped the opera restored it to their rotations after the 1970