Rodgers and Hammerstein. Lerner and Loewe. Gershwin and Gershwin. Lloyd Webber and Rice. Since drama was first set to music in ancient times, the relationship between composer and librettist has been a sacred partnership, resulting in some of the greatest works of opera and musical theater. Without the dynamic duo of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, we would not have “The Sound of Music.” Without the incomparable pair of Lorenzo da Ponte and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, there would be no “Marriage of Figaro.”

There is something unique about the joint enterprise of two artists. What makes this relationship so special is the common mindset of the two parties involved — the composer must highlight the beauty of language in the librettist’s text, and the librettist must challenge the composer and bring out the best in his music. When two artists “click,” the works they generate are unparalleled.

While time has produced hundreds of such partnerships, one pair seems to stand above the rest — librettist W.S. Gilbert and composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. For 25 years, these comedic gods of the late 19th century had British theater-goers in stitches with their zany, madcap operettas.

To this day, Gilbert and Sullivan’s works are cherished by music lovers worldwide. Societies across the globe — from Spain to Israel to South Africa to New Zealand — are devoted to performing the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Ann Arbor happens to boast the oldest of North American societies: the University of Michigan Gilbert & Sullivan Society.

When it was founded in 1947, UMGASS made its mission clear: its first-ever program reads, “In time we hope to get through all their works, the less well-known ones as well as the ones to which everyone comes already humming the tunes.”

Since its founding year, the society has reached its goal of performing the entire 13-work canon of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. UMGASS puts on at least two shows a year, and sometimes even a third during the summer. Starting this Thursday, UMGASS will present an earlier G&S operetta, the 1877 hit “The Sorcerer.”

"LOVE LEVELS ALL"

For newbies unfamiliar with Gilbert and Sullivan, UMGASS’s upcoming performance is a perfect starting point.

“The Sorcerer” takes place in the small English town of Ploverleigh, where lead characters Alexis Pointdextre and Aline Sangazure have been engaged to be married. Alexis, enthralled with the matrimonial bliss his engagement has brought him, wants all of the villagers to share in his joy.

“So (Alexis), who has more money than sense, hires a sorcerer to give a love portion to the entire village so they can enjoy the same happiness they have,” said “Sorcerer” director Mitchell Gillett, an electron microscopist in the Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences department of the Medical School. “After the potion is given, hilarity ensues, as it were. Everything is all confused — old men are with young ladies, rich with poor, lower class with upper class, etc. People who were in love with other people are now in love with different people, and some of them are not too happy about it.”

When the situation becomes serious, Alexis realizes the potion must be reversed and the village returned to normal. However, this requires a sacrifice from the sorcerer, resulting in a hilariously dark ending.

Gillett pointed to an important theme of the work that appears in several other G&S operettas — that love levels all ranks. In class-conscious Victorian England, society was governed by the laws and etiquette of social status. Gilbert and Sullivan, however, radically challenged these social norms by pairing rich characters with poor characters.