George Grossmith, Matthew Arnold, James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde. Hesketh Pearson said of Carte: "His acute business sense was aided by a frank and agreeable manner: he could not only see where money was to be made but how to make it. He took what other people thought were risks, but he felt were certainties. ... He knew everyone worth knowing ... and his practical judgement was as sure as his sense of artistry." Founding his opera company In 1874, Carte leased the Opera Comique, a theatre off the Strand, where he presented Charles Lecocq's new opéra bouffe Giroflé-Girofla, given in French by the company who had premiered the work three months earlier in Brussels. It did poor box-office business, and had to be closed after two weeks. He followed it with a modest success, The Broken Branch, an English adaptation of Gaston Serpette's La branche cassée. Carte announced his ambitions on the front of the programme for the latter: "It is my desire to establish in London a permanent abode for light Opera." The Observer commented, "Mr D'Oyly Carte is not only a skilful manager, but a trained musician, and he appears to have grasped the fact that the public are beginning to become weary of what is known as a genuine opéra bouffe, and are ready to welcome a musical entertainment of a higher order, such as a musician might produce with satisfaction". Carte later said it was "the scheme of my life" to found a school of high-quality, family-friendly English comic opera, in contrast to the crude burlesques and adaptations of French operettas that dominated the London musical stage at that time. His experience in writing operettas had convinced him that his own creative talents were inadequate for the task. He later wrote to the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, "I envy your position but I could never attain it. If I could be an author like you I would certainly not be a manager. I am simply the tradesman who sells your works of art". Furthermore, in 1874 Carte did not yet have the resources to make his idea into reality, and after his season at the Opera Comique, he terminated his lease. In 1875 Carte became the business manager of the Royalty Theatre, under the direction of his client, the popular singing actress Selina Dolaro who was the licensee of the theatre and star of