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The Mikado
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The Mikado or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations. It opened on March 14, 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, which was the second longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. Before the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera.
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The Mikado or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations. It opened on March 14, 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, which was the second longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. Before the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera. The Mikado remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera, and it is especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history.
Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert to satirize British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese. Gilbert used foreign or fictional locales in several operas, including The Mikado, Princess Ida, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke, to soften the impact of his pointed satire of British institutions.
Origins of the work
Gilbert and Sullivan's previous opera, Princess Ida, ran for nine months — a short duration by Savoy opera standards. As Ida showed signs of flagging, producer Richard D'Oyly Carte realized that, for the first time since 1877, no new Savoy opera would be ready when the old one closed. On March 22, 1884, Carte gave Gilbert and Sullivan contractual notice that a new opera would be required in six months' time. Sullivan's close friend, conductor Frederic Clay, had suffered a serious stroke in early December 1883 that effectively ended his career. Sullivan, reflecting on this, on his own precarious health, and on his desire to devote himself to more serious music, replied that "it is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself". Gilbert was surprised to hear of Sullivan's hesitation and had started work on a new opera involving a plot in which people fell in love against their wills after taking a magic lozenge. He wrote to Sullivan asking him to reconsider, but the composer replied on 2 April that he had "come to the end of my tether" with the operas:
Gilbert was much hurt, but Sullivan insisted that he could not set the "lozenge plot". In addition to the "improbability" of it, it was too similar to the plot of their 1877 opera, The Sorcerer. The parties were at a stalemate, and Gilbert wrote, "And so ends a musical & literary association of seven years' standing – an association of exceptional reputation – an association unequalled in its monetary results, and hitherto undisturbed by a single jarring or discordant element." However, by 8 May 1884, Gilbert was ready to back down, writing, "...am I to understand that if I construct another plot in which no supernatural element occurs, you will undertake to set it? ... a consistent plot, free from anachronisms, constructed in perfect good faith & to the best of my ability." The stalemate was broken, and on 20 May, Gilbert sent Sullivan a sketch of the plot of The Mikado. Gilbert eventually found a place for his "lozenge plot" in The Mountebanks, written with Alfred Cellier in 1892. It would take another ten months for The Mikado to reach the stage. A revised version of their 1877 work, The Sorcerer, coupled with their one-act Trial by Jury (1875), played at the Savoy while Carte and their audiences awaited their next work.
Cellier and Bridgeman first recorded the familiar story of how Gilbert found his inspiration in 1914:
The story is an appealing one, but it is entirely fictional. Gilbert was interviewed twice about his inspiration for The Mikado. In both interviews the sword was mentioned, and in one of them he said it was the inspiration for the opera, but Gilbert never said that the sword had fallen. Moreover, Cellier and Bridgeman are incorrect about the Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge, which did not open until 10 January 1885, almost two months after Gilbert had already completed Act I. Jones notes that "the further removed in time the writer is from the incident, the more graphically it is recalled." Leslie Baily, for instance, told it this way in 1952:
The story was dramatized in more-or-less this form in the 1999 film Topsy-Turvy. However, even though the 1885-87 Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge had not opened when Gilbert conceived of The Mikado, the English craze for all things Japanese had built through the 1860s and 1870s and made the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert said, "I cannot give you a good reason for our... piece being laid in Japan. It... afforded scope for picturesque treatment, scenery and costume, and I think that the idea of a chief magistrate, who is... judge and actual executioner in one, and yet would not hurt a worm, may perhaps please the public."
In an 1885 interview with the New York Daily Tribune, Gilbert also stated that the short stature of Leonora Braham, Jessie Bond and Sybil Grey "suggested the advisability of grouping them as three Japanese school-girls" referred to in the opera as the "three little maids". He also recounted that a young Japanese lady, a tea-server from the Japanese village, came to rehearsals to coach the three little maids in some native Japanese dances. On 12 February 1885, one month before The Mikado opened, the Illustrated London News wrote about the opening of the Japanese village noting, among other things, that "the graceful, fantastic dancing featured... three little maids!" Finally, Gilbert related that he and Sullivan had decided to cut the Mikado's Act II song, but that members of the company and others who had witnessed the dress rehearsal "came to us in a body and begged us to restore [it]".
Themes of death in the comedy
The Mikado is a comedy that deals with themes of death and cruelty. This works only because Gilbert treats these themes as trivial, even lighthearted issues. For instance, in Pish-Tush's song "Our great Mikado, virtuous man", he sings: "The youth who winked a roving eye/Or breathed a non-connubial sigh/Was thereupon condemned to die —/He usually objected." The term for this rhetorical technique is meiosis, a drastic understatement of the situation. Other examples of this are when self-decapitation is described as "an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt", and also as merely "awkward". When a discussion occurs of Nanki-Poo's life being "cut short in a month", the tone remains comic and only mock-melancholy. Burial alive is described as "a stuffy death". Finally, execution by boiling oil or by melted lead is described by the Mikado as a "humorous but lingering" punishment.
Death is treated as a businesslike event. Pooh-Bah calls Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, an "industrious mechanic". Ko-Ko also treats his bloody office as a profession, saying, "I can't consent to embark on a professional operation unless I see my way to a successful result." Of course, joking about death does not originate with The Mikado. The plot conceit that Nanki-Poo may marry Yum-Yum if he agrees to die at the end of the month was used in A Wife for a Month, a 17th century play by John Fletcher. Ko-Ko's final speech affirms that death has been, throughout the opera, a fiction, a matter of words that can be dispelled with a phrase or two: being dead and being "as good as dead" are equated.
Controversy and political correctness
Not actually a Japanese opera
To the extent that the opera is inspired by, and purports to portray, Japanese culture, style, and government, it draws on Victorian notions of the subject, gleaned from the general British fascination with Japanese fashion and art that immediately followed the beginning of trade between the two island empires, and the popular Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge, London, that Gilbert visited during rehearsals for The Mikado, and which Ko-Ko uses as Nanki-Poo's "destination" in Act II. The song "Miya sama", however, is a version of a Japanese war march composed in the Meiji Era. Giacomo Puccini later incorporated it into Madama Butterfly. The characters' names in the play are not Japanese names, but rather (in many cases) English "baby-talk" or simply dismissive exclamations. For instance, a pretty young thing is named Pitti-Sing; the beautiful heroine is named Yum-Yum; the pompous officials are Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush; the hero is called Nanki-Poo, baby-talk for "handkerchief" The headsman's name, Ko-Ko, is similar to that of the scheming Ko-Ko-Ri-Ko in Ba-ta-clan by Jacques Offenbach. Gilbert sought authenticity in the production, costumes, and in the movements and gestures of the actors. To that end, Gilbert engaged some of the Japanese at the Knightsbridge village to advise on the production and to coach the actors. "The Directors and Native Inhabitants" of the village were duly thanked in the programme that was distributed on the first night.
The Japanese were ambivalent toward The Mikado for many years, not knowing for certain whether it was making fun of them or of the English. Some Japanese saw the depiction of their ruler as offensive, particularly its depiction of the title character, which was seen by some as a disrespectful representation of the revered Meiji Emperor. Gilbert wrote, "The Mikado of the opera was an imaginary monarch of a remote period and cannot by any exercise of ingenuity be taken to be a slap on an existing institution." G. K. Chesterton compared it to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels:
Japanese Prince Komatsu Akihito, who saw an 1886 production in London, took no offence. When Prince Fushimi Sadanaru made a state visit in 1907, the British government banned performances of The Mikado from London for six weeks, fearing that the play might offend him — a manoeuvre that backfired when the prince complained that he had hoped to see The Mikado during his stay. A Japanese journalist covering the prince's stay attended a proscribed performance and confessed himself "deeply and pleasingly disappointed." Expecting "real insults" to his country, he had found only "bright music and much fun." The J. C. Williamson G&S company toured Japan in the 1920s, likely performing The Mikado among other Gilbert and Sullivan works. After World War II, The Mikado was staged in Japan in a number of private performances. The first public production, given at three performances, was in 1946, conducted by the pianist Jorge Bolet for the entertainment of American troops. The set and costumes were opulent, and the principal players were American, Canadian, and British, as were the women's chorus, but the male chorus and the female dancing chorus were Japanese. General Douglas MacArthur banned a 1947 Tokyo production, but other productions went forward by permission of the copyright holders.
In recent decades, various Japanese productions of the work have been staged in Japan. In 2001, the town of Chichibu, Japan, under the name of "Tokyo Theatre Company", produced an adaptation of The Mikado in Japanese. Locals say that Chichibu was the town that Gilbert had in mind when he named his setting "Titipu", but there is no hard evidence for this theory. Rokusuke Ei, a Japanese broadcaster, lyricist and essayist, was convinced that a peasant uprising in Chichibu in 1884 inspired Gilbert to set the opera in Japan. Although the Hepburn system of transliteration (in which the name of the town appears as "Chichibu") is usually found today, it was very common in the 19th century to use the Kunrei system, in which the name ?? appears as "Titibu". Thus it is easy to surmise that "Titibu", found in the London press of 1884, became "Titipu" in the opera. Other Japanese researchers have concluded that Gilbert may simply have heard of Chichibu silk, an important export in the 19th century. In any case, the town's Japanese-language adaptation of The Mikado has been performed several times throughout Japan. In August 2006, the Chichibu Mikado was performed at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in England, and the same company continues to perform the adaptation on tour in Japan in 2007.
Alleged racism and sexism
In the song "As some day it may happen", sung by Ko-Ko in Act I, the character goes through a "little list" of "society offenders" who, if executed, "would not be missed". One of these is "the nigger serenader and the others of his race". Gilbert's reference was to blackface minstrels who were white entertainers in makeup, not to dark skinned people. Also included in the list are "the lady novelist", referring to a particular type of novelist earlier lampooned by George Eliot, and "the lady from the provinces who dresses like a guy", where guy refers to the dummy that is part of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations, hence a tasteless woman who dresses like a scarecrow.
These lines can be taken by modern audiences to have racist, sexist, or anti-feminist connotations, although they did not have the same connotations to the original Victorian audiences. To avoid distracting the audience with references that have become offensive over time, the lyrics are almost invariably modified in modern productions; universally, the word "nigger" is not used. Gilbert himself started the tradition of replacing "the lady novelist" in revivals that he supervised, since by the early 1900s women writers were no longer "a singular anomaly". The standard replacement for "nigger serenader" is the only slightly less obvious "banjo serenader". This was suggested by lyricist A. P. Herbert in 1948 at Rupert D'Oyly Carte's instigation, after the original wording elicited concerns during one of the company's American tours. Herbert also suggested what has become the traditional wording in the Mikado's song ("A more humane Mikado") in Act II, with the words "blacked like a nigger" being replaced with "painted with vigour" in most modern productions.
There are other references in The Mikado that are sometimes altered simply to make the jokes more relevant to modern or non-UK audiences. One is the "Little List" song, which is often significantly rewritten with topical references. As Ko-Ko himself notes at the end of the song, "It really doesn't matter whom you put upon the list, for they'd none of 'em be missed!". Another frequent alteration is to Pooh-Bah's list of titles, which must be kept largely the same due to later plot references, but may be added to with modern, topical positions. Another is the Mikado's list of punishments and crimes in "A more humane Mikado", which might be made to include modern infractions.
Roles
- The Mikado of Japan (bass-baritone)
- Nanki-Poo, His Son, disguised as a wandering minstrel and in love with Yum-Yum (tenor)
- Ko-Ko, The Lord High Executioner of Titipu (comic baritone)
- Pooh-Bah, Lord High Everything Else (baritone)
- Pish-Tush, A Noble Lord (baritone)
- [Go-To, A Noble Lord] (bass)
- Yum-Yum, A Ward of Ko-Ko, also engaged to Ko-Ko (soprano)
- Pitti-Sing, A Ward of Ko-Ko (mezzo-soprano)
- Peep-Bo, A Ward of Ko-Ko (soprano or mezzo-soprano)
- Katisha, An Elderly lady, in love with Nanki-Poo (contralto)
- Chorus of School-Girls, Nobles, Guards and Coolies
Synopsis
Act I
- Courtyard of Ko-Ko's Official Residence
Gentlemen of the Japanese town of Titipu are gathered ("If you want to know who we are"). A wandering musician, Nanki-Poo, enters and introduces himself ("A wand'ring minstrel, I"). He inquires about his beloved, the maiden Yum-Yum, a ward of Ko-Ko (formerly a cheap tailor). One of the gentlemen, Pish-Tush, explains that when the Mikado decreed that flirting was a capital crime, the Titipu authorities frustrated the decree by appointing Ko-Ko, a prisoner condemned to death for flirting, to the post of Lord High Executioner ("Our great Mikado, virtuous man"). Ko-Ko was "next" to be decapitated, and the Titipu authorities reasoned that he could "not cut off another's head until he cut his own off", and since Ko-Ko was not likely to try to execute himself, no executions could take place. However, all officials but the haughty Pooh-Bah proved too proud to serve under an ex-tailor, and Pooh-Bah now holds all their posts — and collects all their salaries. Pooh-Bah informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum is scheduled to marry Ko-Ko on that very day ("Young man, despair").
Ko-Ko enters ("Behold the Lord High Executioner"), and asserts himself by reading off a list of people "who would not be missed" if they were executed ("I've got a little list"). Soon, Yum-Yum appears with two of her friends (sometimes referred to as her "sisters"), Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing ("Comes a train of little ladies", "Three little maids from school"). Ko-Ko encourages a respectful greeting between Pooh-Bah and the young girls, but Pooh-Bah will have none of it ("So please you, sir"). Nanki-Poo arrives on the scene and informs Ko-Ko of his love for Yum-Yum. Ko-Ko sends him away, but Nanki-Poo manages to meet with his beloved and reveals his secret to Yum-Yum – he is the son and heir of the Mikado, but he's travelling in disguise to avoid the amorous advances of Katisha, an elderly lady of his father's court. They lament over what the law forbids them to do ("Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted").
Ko-Ko receives news that the Mikado has decreed that unless an execution is carried out within a month, the town will be reduced to the rank of a village — which would bring "irretrievable ruin". Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush point to Ko-Ko himself as the obvious choice for beheading, since he was already under sentence of death ("I am so proud"), but Ko-Ko protests that, firstly, it would be "extremely difficult, not to say dangerous", for him to attempt to execute himself, and secondly, it would be suicide, which is a "capital offence". Fortuitously, Ko-Ko discovers that Nanki-Poo, in despair over losing Yum-Yum, is preparing to commit suicide. After ascertaining that nothing would change Nanki-Poo's mind, Ko-Ko makes a bargain with him: Nanki-Poo may marry Yum-Yum for one month if, at the end of that time, he allows himself to be executed. Ko-Ko would then marry the young widow.
Everyone arrives to celebrate Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum's union ("With aspect stern and gloomy stride"), but the festivities are interrupted by the arrival of Katisha, who has come to claim Nanki-Poo as her husband. However, the townspeople are much more sympathetic to the young couple, and her attempts to reveal Nanki-Poo's secret are drowned out by the shouting of the crowd. Outwitted but not defeated, Katisha makes it clear that she intends to return.
Act II
Yum-Yum is being prepared by her friends for her wedding ("Braid the raven hair"), after which she is left to muse on her own beauty ("The sun whose rays"). She is joined by Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo, who remind her of the limited nature of her impending union. Joined by Nanki-Poo and Pish-Tush, they try to keep their spirits up ("Brightly dawns our wedding-day"), but soon Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah enter to inform them of a twist in the law that states that when a married man is beheaded for flirting (the only crime so punished), his wife must be buried alive ("Here's a how-de-do"). Yum-Yum is unwilling to marry under these circumstances, and so Nanki-Poo challenges Ko-Ko to behead him on the spot. It turns out, however, that Ko-Ko has never executed anyone and cannot execute Nanki-Poo, because the ex-tailor is too soft-hearted. Ko-Ko instead sends Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum away to be wed (by Pooh-Bah, as Archbishop of Titipu), promising to present to the Mikado a false affidavit in evidence of the fictitious execution.
The Mikado and Katisha arrive in Titipu with little notice, but accompanied by a large procession ("A more humane Mikado"). Ko-Ko assumes that he has come to see whether an execution has been carried out. Aided by Pitti-Sing and Pooh-Bah, he gives a graphic description of the supposed execution ("The criminal cried") and hands the Mikado the certificate of death – signed and sworn to by Pooh-Bah as coroner and noting, slyly, that most of the town's important officers (that is, Pooh-Bah) were present at the "ceremony". However, the Mikado has come about an entirely different matter – he is searching for his son. When they hear that the Mikado's son "goes by the name of Nanki-Poo", the three panic, and Ko-Ko says that Nanki-Poo "has gone abroad". Meanwhile, Katisha is reading the death certificate and notes with horror that the person "executed" was Nanki-Poo. The Mikado (though expressing understanding and sympathy) ("See How the Fates") discusses with Katisha the statutory punishment "for compassing the death of the heir apparent" to the Imperial throne – something lingering, "with boiling oil... or melted lead". With the three conspirators facing painful execution, Ko-Ko pleads with Nanki-Poo to return. Nanki-Poo fears that Katisha will order his execution if she finds he is alive, but notes that if Ko-Ko could persuade Katisha to marry him, then Nanki-Poo could safely "come to life again" ("The flowers that bloom in the spring"). Though Katisha is "something appalling", Ko-Ko has no choice: it is marriage to Katisha, or a painful death for all three.
Ko-Ko discovers Katisha mourning her loss ("Alone, and yet alive") and throws himself on her mercy. He begs for her hand in marriage, saying that he has long harboured a passion for her. Katisha initially rebuffs him, but is soon moved by his pleadings ("Tit-willow"). She agrees ("There is beauty in the bellow of the blast") and, once the ceremony is performed (by Pooh-Bah, the Registrar), begs mercy for him and his "accomplices" from the Mikado. Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum then re-appear, sparking Katisha's fury. The Mikado is astonished that Nanki-Poo is alive, when the account of his execution had been given with such "affecting particulars". Ko-Ko explains that when a royal command for an execution is given, the victim is, legally speaking, as good as dead, "and if he is dead, why not say so?". The Mikado deems that "Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory", and so Titipu celebrates ("For he's gone and married Yum-Yum").
Musical numbers
*Overture (Includes "Mi-ya Sa-ma", "The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze", "There is Beauty in the Bellow of the Blast", "Braid the Raven Hair" and "With Aspect Stern and Gloomy Stride")
Act I
- 1. "If you want to know who we are" (Nanki-Poo and Men)
- 2. "A Wand'ring Minstrel I" (Nanki-Poo and Men)
- 3. "Our Great Mikado, virtuous man" (Pish-Tush and Men)
- 4. "Young man, despair" (Pooh-Bah, Nanki-Poo and Pish-Tush)
- 5. "Behold the Lord High Executioner" (Ko-Ko and Men)
- 5a. "As some day it may happen" (Ko-Ko and Men)
- 6. "Comes a train of little ladies" (Girls)
- 7. "Three little maids from school are we" (Yum-Yum, Peep-Bo, Pitti-Sing, and Girls)
- 8. "So please you, Sir, we much regret" (Yum-Yum, Peep-Bo, Pitti-Sing, Pooh-Bah, and Girls)
- 9. "Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted" (Yum-Yum and Nanki-Poo)
- 10. "I am so proud" (Pooh-Bah, Ko-Ko and Pish-Tush)
- 11. Finale Act I (Ensemble)
- "With aspect stern and gloomy stride"
- "The threatened cloud has passed away"
- "Your revels cease!" ... "Oh fool, that fleest my hallowed joys!"
- "For he's going to marry Yum-Yum"
- "The hour of gladness" ... "O ni! bikkuri shakkuri to!"
- "Ye torrents roar!"
Act II
- 12. "Braid the raven hair" (Pitti-Sing and Girls)
- 13. "The sun whose rays are all ablaze" (Yum-Yum) (Originally in Act I, moved to Act II shortly after the opening night)
- 14. "Brightly dawns our wedding day" (Yum-Yum, Pitti-Sing, Nanki-Poo and Pish-Tush)
- 15. "Here's a how-de-do" (Yum-Yum, Nanki-Poo and Ko-Ko)
- 16. "Mi-ya Sa-ma...." "From every kind of man obedience I expect" (Mikado, Katisha, Girls and Men)
- 17. "A more humane Mikado" (Mikado, Girls and Men) (This song was nearly cut, but was restored shortly before the first night.)
- 18. "The criminal cried as he dropped him down" (Ko-Ko, Pitti-Sing, Pooh-Bah, Girls and Men)
- 19. "See how the Fates their gifts allot" (Mikado, Pitti-Sing, Pooh-Bah, Ko-Ko and Katisha)
- 20. "The flowers that bloom in the spring" (Nanki-Poo, Ko-Ko, Yum-Yum, Pitti-Sing, and Pooh-Bah)
- 21. "Alone, and yet alive" (Katisha)
- 22. "Willow, tit-willow" ("On a tree by a river") (Ko-Ko)
- 23. "There is beauty in the bellow of the blast" (Katisha and Ko-Ko)
- 24. "For he's gone and married Yum-Yum" ... "The threatened cloud has passed away" (Ensemble)
Productions
The Mikado had the longest original run of the Savoy Operas. It also had the quickest revival: after Gilbert and Sullivan's next work, Ruddigore, closed relatively quickly, three operas were revived to fill the interregnum until The Yeomen of the Guard was ready, with The Mikado being revived just seventeen months after the first run closed.
It was revived again while The Grand Duke was in preparation. When it became clear that that opera was not a success, The Mikado was given at matinees, and the revival continued when The Grand Duke closed after just three months. In 1906–07, Helen Carte, the widow of Richard D'Oyly Carte, mounted a repertory season at the Savoy, but The Mikado was not performed, as it was thought that visiting Japanese royalty might be offended by it. However, it was included in Mrs. Carte's second repertory season, in 1908–09. New costume designs were created by Charles Ricketts for the 1926 season and were used until 1982.
The first provincial production of The Mikado opened on July 27, 1885 in Brighton, with several members of that company leaving in August to present the first authorised American production in New York. From then on, The Mikado was a constant presence on tour. From 1885 until the Company's closure in 1982, there was no year in which a D'Oyly Carte company (or several of them) was not presenting it.
In America, as had happened with H.M.S. Pinafore, the first productions were piracies, but once the authorised American production opened in August 1885, it was a success, earning record profits, and Carte formed several companies to tour the show in North America. burlesque and parody productions, including political parodies, were mounted. Numerous unauthorised versions cropped up, and, as had been the case with Pinafore, there was nothing that Carte or Gilbert and Sullivan could do about it, since there was no copyright treaty at the time. In Australia, The Mikados first authorised performance was on 14 November 1885 at the Theatre Royal, Sydney, produced by J. C. Williamson.
Carte toured the opera in 1886 and again in 1887 in Europe. In September 1886, Vienna's leading critic, Eduard Hanslick, wrote that the opera's "unparalleled success" was attributable not merely to the libretto and the music, but also to "the wholly original stage performance, unique of its kind, by Mr D'Oyly Carte's artists... riveting the eye and ear with its exotic allurement." Authorized productions were also seen in France, Holland, Hungary, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, Russia and elsewhere.
After the Gilbert copyrights expired in 1962, the Sadler's Wells Opera mounted the first non-D'Oyly Carte professional production in England, with Clive Revill as Ko-Ko. Among the many professional revivals since then was an English National Opera production in 1986, with Eric Idle as Ko-Ko and Lesley Garrett as Yum-Yum, directed by Jonathan Miller. This production, which has been revived several times, was set not in ancient Japan, but in a swanky 1920's seaside hotel with sets and costumes in white and black.
The following table shows the history of the D'Oyly Carte productions in Gilbert's lifetime:
| Theatre | Opening Date | Closing Date | Perfs. | Details |
|---|
| Savoy Theatre | March 14, 1885 | January 19, 1887 | 672 | First London run. | | Fifth Avenue and Standard Theatres, New York | August 19, 1885 | April 17, 1886 | 250 | Authorised American production. Production was given at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, except for a one-month transfer to the Standard Theatre in February 1886. | | Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York | November 1, 1886 | November 20, 1886 | 3 wks | Production with some D'Oyly Carte personnel under the management of John Stetson. | | Savoy Theatre | June 7, 1888 | September 29, 1888 | 116 | First London revival. | | Savoy Theatre | November 6, 1895 | March 4, 1896 | 127 | Second London revival. | | Savoy Theatre | May 27, 1896 | July 4, 1896 | 6 | Performances at matinees during the original run of The Grand Duke. | | Savoy Theatre | July 11, 1896 | February 17, 1897 | 226 | Continuation of revival after early closure of The Grand Duke. | | Savoy Theatre | April 28, 1908 | March 27, 1909 | 142 | Second Savoy repertory season; played with five other operas. Closing date shown is of the entire season. |
Historical casting
The following tables show the casts of the principal original productions and D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring repertory at various times through to the company's 1982 closure:
1Role of Go-To added from April 1885
²For 1896–97 revival, Richard Temple returned to play The Mikado during January–February 1896, and again from November 1896–February 1897.
Recordings
Audio recordings
The Mikado has been recorded more often than any other Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Of those by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, the 1926 recording is the best regarded. Of the modern recordings, the 1992 Mackerras/Telarc is admired.
Selected audio recordings
- 1926 D'Oyly Carte – Conductor: Harry Norris
- 1936 D'Oyly Carte – Conductor: Isidore Godfrey
- 1950 D'Oyly Carte – New Promenade Orchestra, Conductor: Isidore Godfrey
- 1957 D'Oyly Carte – New Symphony Orchestra of London, Conductor: Isidore Godfrey
- 1984 Stratford Festival – Conductor: Berthold Carrière
- 1990 New D'Oyly Carte – Conductor: John Pryce-Jones
- 1992 Mackerras/Telarc – Orchestra & Chorus of the Welsh National Opera, Conductor: Sir Charles Mackerras
Films and videos
In 1926, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made a brief promotional film of The Mikado. Some of the most famous Savoyards are seen in this film, including Darrell Fancourt as The Mikado, Henry Lytton as Ko-Ko, Leo Sheffield as Pooh-Bah, Elsie Griffin as Yum-Yum, and Bertha Lewis as Katisha.
In 1939, Universal Pictures released a ninety-minute technicolor film of The Mikado. The film stars Martyn Green as Ko-Ko, Sydney Granville as Pooh-Bah, the American singer Kenny Baker as Nanki-Poo and Jean Colin as Yum-Yum. Many of the other leads and chorusters were or had been members of the D'Oyly Carte organisation. The music was conducted by Geoffrey Toye, a former D'Oyly Carte music director, who was also the producer and was credited with the adaptation, which involved a number of cuts, additions, and re-ordered scenes. Victor Schertzinger directed, and William V. Skall received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.
In 1966, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company appeared in a film version of The Mikado, which closely reflected their traditional staging at the time, although there are some minor cuts.
Video recordings of The Mikado include a 1972 offering from G&S For All, the 1984 Stratford Festival video (probably their best-regarded video), the 1986 English National Opera production (abridged), and a 1988 Australian Opera video.
Adaptations
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company controlled the copyrights to performances of The Mikado and the other Gilbert and Sullivan operas until 1961. It usually required authorised productions to present the music and libretto exactly as shown in the copyrighted editions. Since 1961, Gilbert and Sullivan works have been in the public domain and can be—and frequently are—adapted and performed in new ways. Notable adaptations have included the following:
Bell Telephone Hour version (1960) features Groucho Marx as Ko-Ko, Stanley Holloway and Helen Traubel, directed by Martyn Green.The Black Mikado (1975) was a jazzy, sexy production set on a Caribbean island.The Chichibu production of the "Tokyo Theatre Company"The Cool Mikado is a 1962 British musical film directed by Michael Winner that adapts The Mikado in 1960s pop music style and reset as a comic Japanese gangster story.The Hot Mikado (1939) was a Broadway adaptation of The Mikado with an all-black cast, using jazz and swing music.Hot Mikado (1986) is a jazz and swing style adaptation that premiered in Washington, D.C. and has been played frequently since then.The Jazz MikadoThe Swing Mikado was an adaptation of The Mikado with an all-black cast, using swing music, that premiered in Chicago in 1938.Essgee Entertainment produced an adapted version of The Mikado in 1995 in Australia and New Zealand.The Condensed Mikado is a one-hour production sometimes staged in honor of the annual Washington, D.C., Cherry Blossom Festival by The Washington Savoyards..
The Mikado in popular culture
A wide variety of popular media, including films, television, theatre, and advertising have referred to, parodied or pastiched The Mikado or its songs, and phrases from the libretto have entered popular usage in the English language. Some of the best-known of these cultural influences are described below.
Groucho Marx, a life-long fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, starred as Ko-Ko in a made-for-TV production of The Mikado in 1960. Other well-known actors who have played the role of Ko-Ko include Eric Idle and then Bill Oddie, with English National Opera's production of The Mikado. Dudley Moore played the role when the production toured the United States.
Quotes from The Mikado were infamously used in letters to the police by the Zodiac Killer, who murdered at least five people in the San Francisco Bay area between 1966 and 1970. The Mikado is parodied by Sumo of the Opera, which credits Sullivan as the composer of most of its songs. In 2007, the Los Angeles-based Asian American theatre company, Lodestone Theatre Ensemble, produced The Mikado Project, an original play by Doris Baizley and Ken Narasaki. It was a deconstruction of the opera premised on a fictional Asian American theatre company attempting to overcome perceived racism in the original through a revisionist version. The detective novel Death at the Opera by Gladys Mitchell (London: Grayson, 1934) is set against a background of a production of The Mikado.
Popular media have referred to The Mikado in numerous ways. For example, the climax of the 1978 film Foul Play takes place during a performance of The Mikado. A second-season episode of the TV show Millennium titled "The Mikado" is based on the Zodiac case. Mikado trading cards were created that advertised various products. "The Mikado" was a villainous vigilante in the comic book superhero series The Question, by Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan. He killed malefactors in appropriate ways – letting "the punishment fit the crime". In addition, the name was applied to the 2-8-2 railroad locomotive when an early production run of these locomotives, built in the U.S., was shipped to Japan in 1893.
Popular phrases from The Mikado
The phrase "A short, sharp shock", heard in the Act 1 song "I am so proud" has entered the English language, appearing in titles of books and songs (most notably in samples of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"), as well as political manifestos. Likewise "Let the punishment fit the crime" is an often-used phrase from the Mikado's Act II song and is particularly mentioned in the course of British political debates, though the concept, and similar phrases, long predate Gilbert. For instance, in episode 80 of the television series Magnum, P.I., entitled "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime," Higgins prepares to direct a selection of pieces from The Mikado to be staged at the Estate. The show features bits of several Mikado songs including "Three Little Maids From School." The phrase and the Mikado's song also are featured in the Dad's Army episode, "A Soldier's Farewell."
A "Pooh-Bah" is a name that has been given, in the U.S., to people who take impressive titles but whose authority is limited. The expression "The Grand Pooh-Bah", first introduced in episodes of The Flintstones, denoting the head of Fred Flintstone's fraternal lodge (the Loyal Order of Water Buffalos). In the UK, the phrase is more often used to mean a person who acts in several capacities at once.
See also
Topsy-Turvy, a 1999 musical drama film about the creation of the piece Cultural influence of Gilbert and Sullivan
Further reading
External links
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