The Gondoliers, or The King of Barataria opened on December 7, 1889, at the Savoy Theater in London; a piano/vocal score was published in London the next year. After the grim Ruddigore and Yeoman of the Guard, The Gondoliers represents a return to the satirical and ebullient Gilbert and Sullivan of The Mikado. The team's 12th stage work together, The Gondoliers was an instant success with both the critics and public; one journalist remarked: "Mr. W. S. Gilbert has returned to the Gilbert of the past.... He is himself again...." The first production ran for 574 performances, second only to The Mikado of 1885; the sumptuous sets and costumes required by the scenario undoubtedly contributed to this success.

Deliberately distancing the plot from the British milieu and mentality, Gilbert sets his story in Venice, leaving the cloudy English sky for the sunny Mediterranean world. Gilbert's libretto mocks the idea of a democratic, or at least excessively republican, form of government, in which "everyone is somebody and no one's anybody." This is perhaps why the show has not been as successful in the United States as have Gilbert and Sullivan's others. Indeed, the first production of The Gondoliers in the U. S., on January 7, 1890, was a dismal failure.

The experience of foreigners in a strange land is at the heart of The Gondoliers, as a Spanish Duke and his family, as well as a Grand Inquisitor, arrive in Venice. Both foreigners and natives, aristocrats and commoners, find and fuss over love along the way. Gilbert injects an element of mystery as people attempt to uncover the identity of the gondolier prince.

Gilbert's Italian setting certainly inspired some of Sullivan's expressive melodic writing, and Sullivan's skill at characterization comes to the fore in "Now Marco, dear," from the Act I finale. Parallel segments of the two verses are set in different keys and have different melodic shapes and rhythmic differences that highlight certain words, such as "And oh my pet...." The eighteenth century time frame and aristocratic characters also prompted Sullivan to compose some of his most stately numbers, especially, "Regular Royal Queen," which greatly pleased Queen Victoria. Whether sung by commoners or aristocrats, the music of The Gondoliers is almost all in a fast tempo. Sullivan himself commented on the near absence of slow music in the piece.

Sullivan toys with rhythm to build suspense. For instance, in the second-act quartet (No. 7), a rising melody, sung "in a contemplative fashion," halts abruptly every third measure, heightening the suspense as characters try to determine which of the gondoliers is actually a prince. The quartet is also an excellent example of Sullivan's contrapuntal writing. Three of the four women maintain the number's sweet melody as each of the four takes a turn breaking away from the groups with a more active vocal line. The result is a continuous interplay of familiar and new music. Italian and Spanish rhythms pepper the score and we even hear a tarantella as the women and girls close in on the palace.

The Gondoliers boasts one of the longest opening numbers of any of Gilbert and Sullivan's works. This roughly 20-minute segment, set in a Piazza in Venice, contains no dialogue and some text in Italian. From the entrance of the flower-bearing farm girls, Sullivan develops lively energy that sets the tone for the rest of the operetta, which a contemporary critic described as "easily the most continuously sunny and untroubled" of the team's works.

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