Claude Duval – or Love and Larceny is a comic opera with music by Edward Solomon to a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens. The plot is loosely based on supposed events in the life of the seventeenth century highwayman, Claude Duval.
The piece was first produced at the Olympic Theatre, London, on 24 August 1881, under the management of Michael Gunn. It ran until the end of October.[1][2] From January to March 1882, a D'Oyly Carte touring company played the work in the British provinces.[3] Another D'Oyly Carte company played it in New York in March and April 1882 under Richard D'Oyly Carte's personal supervision, in tandem with Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience.[4] In New York, a few local references were interpolated into Blood-red Bill's comic song, "William's Sure to Be Right."[5]