One reason Skylight Opera Theatre's "Iolanthe" works so well is that the company just knows Gilbert and Sullivan. "Iolanthe" is Skylight's 52nd production featuring libretto by W.S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan, and by now they seem to feel at home jigging in their Gilbert and Sullivan boots.

Director Dorothy Danner and crew get all the G&S-isms right -- the young, sweet and naively excitable women's chorus (in this production, a band of fairies), the prancing, buffoonish men's chorus (the lords of Parliament), the hyperbolic proclamations of love, the almost mythic Britishness, and the world rich in imagination, spirit and optimism.

Danner's designers create a universe strewn with charm and fascinating detail, and the performers fill it with sure-footed craft. The spirit of the entire excursion is so light that moments in "Iolanthe" that seem to be borrowed from other Gilbert and Sullivan plays don't feel like recycled material but rather like in-jokes that wink at their own repetitiveness.

Some of the credit for that has to go to the play's creators, of course, but Danner's skillful direction and the excellent musicianship of Musical Director Richard Carsey bring rosy-cheeked life to the magic and mischief of the material.

The plot finds a lively group of fairies crossing paths with a flatulent band of British politicians. The Lord Chancellor (whose gasps and exasperations are realized masterfully by Richard Halverson) is hesitant to give the hand of his ward Phyllis (Jenni Samuelson) in marriage to barrel-chested baritone Strephon (Andrew Wilkowske).

Strephon is half-human, half-fairy (Wilkowske draws more than a few laughs describing which half is mortal and which is magic), so the fairies take an interest in helping him. As might be expected with Gilbert and Sullivan, plot twists are almost capricious in their frequency and most definitely beside the point. The fun is in the sense of irrelevance.

Anything resembling a statement about society is delivered with the lightest touch (An example of a lyric sung by the lords of Parliament: "Nature always does contrive / that every boy or girl born alive / is either a little liberal or a little conservative.").

Skylight seems effortless working within the framework of wit and whimsy; they are even confident enough to add to it by throwing in a few modernisms -- a ploy I could do without. But these minor additions occur infrequently and don't do much harm, especially given the tide of humor the company is able to generate through sheer accomplishment and enthusiasm.

The designers create a lush world. Peter Dean Beck (sets and lights) finds remarkable possibilities in his set pieces; while at first the greenery of the fairy forest appears flat and representative, Dean Beck has creative double uses for them.

The set changes are artful and exciting, and terrific surprises -- such as a scrim of Parliament that, when the lighting shifts, reveals the lords chattering behind it -- arise throughout.

Brian Hemesath's costumes are inspired and genuinely funny, and the props are a hoot and a holler, including the wand of the Queen of the Fairies, which is an oversized rose, and the newspapers of the lords which, on being overturned, become British flags to illustrate their demonstrative but empty patriotism.

I saw "Iolanthe" opening night, and what few missteps there were -- a singer momentarily behind tempo, a line bobbled -- were so minor and outpaced by exuberance that they hardly registered. Indeed, I mention them only to point out their unworthiness of mentioning.

"Iolanthe" continues at Skylight Opera Theatre through June 9.