Short answers, pulled from the story.
Gilbert and Sullivan were a Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan. They collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, with Gilbert writing the witty, satiric libretti and Sullivan composing the music.
H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known Gilbert and Sullivan operas. The Mikado, which opened in 1885, became the partnership's longest-running hit with 672 performances and remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera.
Gilbert and Sullivan's partnership fractured in April 1890 when Gilbert objected that Richard D'Oyly Carte had charged a new Savoy Theatre lobby carpet to the partnership. The carpet was one of several disputed items, and the real issue was whether Carte could be trusted with the partnership's finances. Gilbert brought a lawsuit and won.
Richard D'Oyly Carte was the producer who brought Gilbert and Sullivan together and nurtured their collaboration. He built the Savoy Theatre in 1881 to present their works and founded the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which performed and promoted their operas for more than a century.
W. S. Gilbert was born in London on the 18th of November 1836, the son of a naval surgeon. Arthur Sullivan was born in London on the 13th of May 1842, six years Gilbert's junior, the son of a military bandmaster.
Gilbert and Sullivan introduced innovations in content and form that directly influenced musical theatre through the 20th century, and they were copied by composers such as Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lines from their operas entered the English language, including "short, sharp shock" and "A policeman's lot is not a happy one".