larger orchestras and correspondingly larger musical venues, permitting public concerts for mass audiences. The Crystal Palace concerts were inaugurated in 1855, with August Manns as the principal conductor and the Handel Triennial Festival, an older institution involving massed choirs before vast audiences, was transferred there. Covent Garden's Royal Opera House was opened in 1858, on the site of an earlier theatre and the Royal Albert Hall was built in 1878. Orchestras which were founded in this period included the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (1840), the Hallé Orchestra at Manchester under Sir Charles Hallé (1858), and the Scottish Orchestra (1891), now the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. English language opera One of the notable features of the mid-19th century is the revival of a tradition of English language opera. Arthur Sullivan, a pupil of Goss, came to public attention in the 1860s with Shakespeare incidental music, The Tempest (1862), The Merchant of Venice (1871), his Irish Symphony (1863–66) and In Memoriam. The period 1835-1865 saw the height of popularity for the Irish born Michael Balfe (1808–70), composer of The Bohemian Girl (1843), the operas of John Pyke Hullah (1812–84), and the earlier English operas of German-born Sir Julius Benedict (1804–85), including his best-known, The Lily of Killarney (1862). Maritana (1845) was the most famous and ballad-rich of the Irish born William Vincent Wallace's operas. The operas of Frederic Clay (1838–89) were among the most popular of the period, including Ages Ago (1869), The Gentleman in Black (1870) and Happy Arcadia (1872), all written with W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911). The Savoy opera collaborations between Gilbert and Sullivan began in 1875 with Trial by Jury. They were in the British light opera tradition with spoken dialogue. They reached their heyday in the 1880s with The Pirates of Penzance (1880), and The Gondoliers (1889), and concluded in 1896 with The Grand Duke. They had rivals like Alfred Cellier's (1844–91) Dorothy (1886) and The Mountebanks (1892), but were the most successful operas of the era and have been among the most frequently revived. Religious and mythical works In the later 19th century there was an increasing appetite for large scale works that covered epic, biblical and mythical themes. This was reflected in the topics of operas, cantatas and oratorios, often utilising British poems and novels. These included choral works like William Sterndale Bennett's The May Queen (1858), Ebenezer Prout's Hereward and King Alfred and cantatas like