Patience was premiered on 23 April 1881 in the Opera Comique, London. It ran for 578 performances. On 10 October 1881 it was transferred to the opening of D'Oyly Carte's Gilbert and Sullivan Theatre - The Savoy. In it Gilbert's satire attacked Affectation and Pretentiousness. The opera good naturedly parodied the Literary Aesthete of the 19th century, Oscar Wilde. Its popularity also gained from the everlasting conflict of the man-in-the-street's outlook and the pseudo-artist.