Pirates of Penzance played by a cast of children, while he waited for his partners to finish writing the new work. This became the partnership's most successful opera, The Mikado, which opened in March 1885. The piece satirised British institutions by setting them in a fictional Japan and took advantage of the Victorian craze for the exotic and "picturesque" Far East. The Mikado became the partnership's longest-running hit, lasting for 672 performances at the Savoy Theatre, and supplanting Patience as the second-longest-running work of musical theatre up to that time. It was extraordinarily popular in the US and worldwide and remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera. The partnership's next opera was Ruddigore, which opened in January 1887. The piece, though a financial success, was a relative disappointment after the extraordinary run of The Mikado. When Ruddigore closed after 288 performances over nine months, Carte mounted revivals of earlier Gilbert and Sullivan operas at the Savoy for almost a year. After another attempt by Gilbert to persuade Sullivan to set a "lozenge plot", Gilbert met his collaborator half way by writing a serio-comic plot for The Yeomen of the Guard, which premiered in October 1888. The opera ran for over a year, with strong New York and touring productions. This was a happy time for Carte, with a long-running opera, new marriage and new hotel and opera house under construction. When Carte asked his partners for a new work, Sullivan again expressed reluctance to write another comic opera, asking if Gilbert would write a "dramatic work on a larger musical scale". Gilbert declined but offered a compromise that Sullivan ultimately accepted: the two would write a light opera for the Savoy, and at the same time, Sullivan could work on a grand opera that Carte would produce at a new theatre he was planning to build to present British grand opera. The new comic opera was The Gondoliers, which opened in December 1889 and became one of the partnership's greatest successes, with an initial run of 554 performances. During these years, Carte was not just the manager of the theatre. He was a full participant in the producing partnership with Gilbert and Sullivan, involved in casting and finding designers; in charge of publicity; directing and hiring designers for the non-Gilbert works, including the many companion pieces (sometimes with the help of assistants); and casting, directing and rehearsing the touring companies,