"Iolanthe, or the Peer and the Peri", opened on November 25, 1882, at the Savoy Theatre and ran for 400 performances. It was Gilbert and Sullivan's seventh collaboration and many people believe it to be their best.

Gilbert had taken potshots at the aristocracy before, but in this "fairy opera," the House of Lords is lampooned as a bastion of the ineffective, privileged and dim-witted. The political party system and other institutions also come in for a dose of satire. Yet, both author and composer managed to couch the criticism among such bouncy, amiable absurdities that it is all received as good fun.

Strephon, an Arcadian shepherd, wants to marry Phyllis, a ward of the Court of Chancery. Phyllis does not know that Strephon is half fairy -- down to the waist. When Phyllis sees Strephon kissing an apparently young woman, she assumes the worst. But her "rival" turns out to be none other than Strephon's own mother, Iolanthe, a fairy -- fairies never grow old. But Phyllis' guardian, the Lord Chancellor of England, and half the peers in the House of Lords are sighing after her. Soon the peers and the fairies are virtually at war, and long friendships are nearly torn asunder. As in Trial by Jury, the Legal Mind comes up with a clever solution to the problem.

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