was another big success, usurping Pinafore'''s position as the longest running piece in the series with the second-longest run in musical theatre history to that date. Patience satirised the self-indulgent aesthetic movement of the 1870s and '80s in England. To popularise the opera in America, in 1882 Carte sent one of the artistes under his management, the young poet Oscar Wilde, on a lecture tour to explain to Americans what the aesthetic movement was about. Carte told an interviewer at that time that he had fifteen theatrical companies and performers touring simultaneously in Europe, America and Australia. Carte had been planning for several years to build a new theatre to promote English comic opera and, in particular, the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. With profits from the Gilbert and Sullivan operas and his concert and lecture agency, he bought property along the Strand in 1880 with frontage onto the Thames Embankment, where he built the Savoy Theatre in 1881. It was a state-of-the-art facility, setting a new standard for technology, comfort and decor. It was the first public building in the world to be lit entirely by electric lights and seated nearly 1,300 people (compared to the Opera Comique's 862).Patience was the first production at the new theatre, transferring there on 10 October 1881. The first generator proved too small to power the whole building, and though the entire front of house was electrically lit, the stage was lit by gas until 28 December 1881. At that performance, Carte stepped on stage and broke a glowing lightbulb before the audience to demonstrate the safety of the new technology. The Times concluded that the theatre "is admirably adapted for its purpose, its acoustic qualities are excellent, and all reasonable demands of comfort and taste are complied with." Carte and his manager, George Edwardes (later famous as manager of the Gaiety Theatre), introduced several innovations at the theatre including free programme booklets, the orderly "queue" system with numbered tickets for the pit and gallery (an American idea), tea served at the interval and a policy of no tipping for cloakroom or other services. Daily expenses at the theatre were about half the possible takings from ticket sales.Dark and Grey, p. 85 The last eight of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas were premiered at the Savoy, and all their operas came to be known as Savoy operas. The Savoy Hotel, designed by the architect