Statistically, in later Savoy Opera annals, ie post-Gondoliers (1889), it had the longest initial run of 220 performances, except for Gilbert and Sullivan's penultimate work Utopia Ltd (1893) which managed 245.

We will never know how the more popular G&S works would have fared had they been premiered in the 1890s when musical comedy with its broader comic, often risqué elements and bright tunes was the rage.

Richard D'Oyly Carte revived a number of them in this decade and only The Mikado did better than Rose of Persia – just, with 226 performances.

It's plain nonsense to pretend the piece is in the same league as the best Gilbert and Sullivan, least of all The Mikado, but it is first-rate Sullivan and even had a brief run in New York in 1900.

In librettist Basil Hood the composer found a new kindred spirit and, by accident or design, the piece has echoes of the earlier successes with Gilbert.

The topsy turvy, complex plot is littered with delicious musical set pieces. Mistaken and cross identities abound, it has a mature lady of harridan tendencies and a frightening monarch (a sultan) who likes to joke.

It gets performances, invariably amateur, although there was a professional BBC recording of the music only issued in 1999 with Richard Suart as Hassan.

Its latest exposure at the Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Buxton in a partially-acted concert performance with abridged dialogue and an occasional narrator mixed the two levels and gave some idea of the work's delights but, frankly, that's all in its flawed way.

With a large cast drawn from the four corners of the UK and USA, soloists swelling out an eight-member chorus which included Chesterfield's Melanie Gilbert, rehearsal time was clearly at a premium, especially for the many ensemble numbers which regularly cried out for a conductor.

Pianist John Howells, carrying out the duties in the unaccompanied quartet Joy and Sorrow Alternate, revealed the potential of what could have been.

Ensembles and choruses just about held together when American soprano Elise Curran, the performance instigator and producer, was involved as the Sultana, Rose-in-Bloom, a role written for her countrywoman and great idol Ellen Beach Yaw.

Her coloratura showpiece 'Neath my Lattice was tossed off with ease and she gratefully seized her other moment of exposure, the 'Suppose' duet with the Sultan, William Revels, who turned in a respectable Let the Satirist Enumerate.

Sam Silvers was excellent as Hassan and Romy McCabe had her moments as his first wife Dancing Sunbeam when her voice wasn't unsteady. His 25th, Blush-of-Morning (Jackie Mitchell) made the most of limited opportunities but Leon Berger's Abdallah, surprisingly, was prone to Dancing Sunbeam's problems.

Nick Sales, on the other hand, was in splendid voice as Yussuf who falls for one of the Sultana's favourite slaves Heart's Desire, a presentably-voiced Christine St Pierre.

Ditto, another of them, Rachel Middle as Honey-of-Life who also offered token choreography in the set dance piece, Musical Maidens Are We.

Sullivan's instrumentally-sophisticated score with its regularly-occurring dance elements (reflecting the prevailing musical comedies of the time with their dancing girls) was skilfully executed by John Howells on a piano, although barely capturing the orchestral colour.

With the pianist again in attendance, we had 'Neath my Lattice once more, plus four cadenzas Sullivan wrote for it when Elise Curran presented More Sopranos of the Savoy.

Ellen Beach Yaw felt the first cadenza Sullivan wrote wasn't difficult enough, so he penned another. A bit higher, she said. So he cobbled a third, the one heard at Rose of Persia's first performance.

When the American soprano departed after 12 performances, he had to write a much simpler one for a mere mortal, Isabel Jay, who took over from her as the Sultana.

Elise offered all four before singing the third as part of the aria at the end of an outstandingly-sung, 11-item concert featuring arias sung by sopranos, mainly those who created post-G&S Savoy Operas, introducing each with well-researched background information.

Her effusive personality spills over into her singing and she really has a remarkable voice with notes in her top range which are way beyond probably 95% of sopranos singing today, and are hit.

Elise, though, is not an average coloratura soprano. Her voice is well-schooled, a little raw perhaps every so often, full-bodied with a vibrant middle range and considerable tonal colour.

Of the 11 gems here, a flamboyantly melodramatic Mine, Mine at Last (Beauty Stone) with a not out-of-place interpolated high G at the end apart, the beautifully lyrical accounts of Take Care of Him (Grand Duke), Why Weep and Wait (Haddon Hall), An Hour Gone (Beauty Stone) and She Had a Letter From Her Love (Merrie England) displayed a voice of genuine quality.

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