Utopia, Limited, or The Flowers of Progress opened October 7, 1893 at the Savoy Theatre and ran for 245 performances. Utopia was the most extravagantly costumed and staged of all the Savoy Operas. It requires a very large cast. Gilbert's libretto is less tightly constructed than its predecessors and for some the score represents the nadir of Sullivan's creative output.

King Paramount of the south seas island of Utopia decides that his people should adopt all English customs and institutions, but he goes a bit overboard and decrees that the kingdom and each of its inhabitants should become a "company limited" based on the English "companies act" of 1862. The king's daughter, Princess Zara, brings six "flowers of progress" from England to train the Utopian people in "English" customs. But the reforms are too successful, which upsets the judges of the Utopian Supreme Court, the "Public Exploder" and ultimately the entire populace, which revolts against them. Zara realises that an essential element has been forgotten, namely "government by party". Introduce that and the result would be "general and unexampled prosperity".

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