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113-669: Its first production, The Mikado , took place on 17 June 1960 at Naval Ordnance Laboratory in White Oak, Maryland . Over the next few years, the company grew rapidly, with five to six productions a season, usually performed in the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University . The company also performed at the White House , and its chorus appeared several times with Washington's National Symphony Orchestra . The company began to suffer financially once they moved from

226-574: A 2016 production, objections by the Asian-American community prompted them to reset the opera in Renaissance-era Milan , eliminating all references to Japan. Reviewers felt that the change resolved the issue. Among other productions that have experimented with varying the original setting, a 2022 staging by Gilbert & Sullivan Austin, titled The McAdo , relocated the action to Scotland. A reviewer from CTX Live Theater praised

339-559: A bird who died of heartbreak ("Tit-willow"). She agrees ("There is beauty in the bellow of the blast") and, once the ceremony is performed (by Pooh-Bah, the Registrar), she begs for the Mikado's mercy for him and his accomplices. Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum then reappear, sparking Katisha's fury. The Mikado is astonished that Nanki-Poo is alive, as the account of his execution had been given with such "affecting particulars". Ko-Ko explains that when

452-517: A company of Japanese had arrived in England and set up a little village of their own in Knightsbridge . The story is an appealing one, but it is largely 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, though he never said the sword had fallen. What puts

565-444: A curtain-raiser for the annual pantomime , had a libretto by T. W. Robertson . Like Court and Cottage , it was favourably reviewed in the press, but did not remain in the theatrical repertoire. In the mid-1860s, Clay and his close friend and fellow musician Arthur Sullivan were frequent guests at the home of John Scott Russell . By about 1865 Clay became engaged to Scott Russell's youngest daughter, Alice May, and Sullivan wooed

678-456: A great friend of his fellow composer Arthur Sullivan , introduced the latter to Gilbert, leading to the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership. In addition to Gilbert, Clay's librettists during his 24-year career included B. C. Stephenson , Tom Taylor , T. W. Robertson , Robert Reece and G. R. Sims . The last of his four pieces with Gilbert was Princess Toto (1875), which had short runs in

791-601: A journalist, "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 said that the short stature of Leonora Braham , Jessie Bond and Sybil Grey "suggested

904-518: A later administration Clay undertook confidential missions on behalf of W.   E.   Gladstone . At the age of 20 Clay experienced what he called the "opening up" of his musical senses: hearing Verdi 's Il trovatore at Covent Garden and Auber 's Les diamants de la couronne at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, he was enthused by "the strength of vocal declamation in the one work and

1017-577: A long period of Conservative government after the party's election victory in February 1874, Clay resigned from the Treasury. A legacy from his father, who died in September 1873, left him financially independent and able to devote his energies to full-time composition. Green Old Age , a "musical improbability", with a libretto by Robert Reece (1874) to which Clay contributed some of the music,

1130-586: A month. A New York production fared still worse. When it was revived in London in 1881 The Times commented that the piece had not appealed to audiences in 1876, "accustomed to a more broadly humorous style of extravaganza" and hoped that by 1881 public taste had become more cultivated under the influence of Gilbert's other comic operas. Nonetheless, the revival ran for only 65 performances. Clay's cantata Lalla Rookh (containing his best-known song, "I'll sing thee songs of Araby" and also "Still this golden lull"),

1243-400: A reference to the sexual prudishness of British culture". Crowther noted that production design and other features of traditionally staged productions of the opera often "do look somewhat insensitive, not to say insulting. ... It should [be possible] to avoid such things in the future, with a little sensitivity. ... G&S is about silliness, and fun, and ... mocking the powerful, and accepting

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1356-623: A reunion of company members was held at the National Theatre. The Mikado 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 14 March 1885, in London , where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of

1469-603: 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 everyone in Titipu celebrates ("For he's gone and married Yum-Yum"). 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

1582-549: A scene from the opera was made in 1902. This was followed in 1906 by a silent film of the opera by Gaumont Film Company . Sound film versions of 12 of the musical numbers from The Mikado were produced in Britain and presented as programmes in 1907 titled Highlights from The Mikado . Another production was released the same year by the Walturdaw Company, starring George Thorne as Ko-Ko. Both of these programmes used

1695-429: A schoolgirl called Yum-Yum, who is 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"). As Ko-Ko was the next prisoner scheduled to be decapitated,

1808-404: A single jarring or discordant element." But 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

1921-563: A sketch of the plot to The Mikado . It would take another ten months for The Mikado to reach the stage. A revised version of The Sorcerer coupled with their one-act piece Trial by Jury (1875) played at the Savoy while Carte and their audiences awaited their next work. Gilbert eventually found a place for his "lozenge plot" in The Mountebanks , written with Alfred Cellier in 1892. In 1914, Cellier and Bridgeman first recorded

2034-701: A third cantata, Sardanapalus , commissioned for the Leeds Festival. After conducting the second performance of The Golden Ring in December 1883 he suffered a stroke that paralysed him and cut short his productive life. In 1889 at the age of 51, he was found drowned in his bath at the home of his sisters in Great Marlow . The coroner 's verdict was suicide while of unsound mind. Clay was buried in Brompton cemetery on 29 November 1889. Sullivan wrote

2147-481: A train of little ladies", " Three little maids from school "). Pooh-Bah does not think that the girls have shown him enough respect ("So please you, sir"). Nanki-Poo arrives 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 travels in disguise to avoid the amorous advances of Katisha, an elderly lady of his father's court. They lament that

2260-454: A version of a Japanese military march song, called "Ton-yare Bushi", composed in the Meiji era . Giacomo Puccini later incorporated the same song into Madama Butterfly as the introduction to Yamadori, ancor le pene . 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

2373-441: 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

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2486-548: Is a satire of late 19th century British institutions, society and politics. By setting the opera in a fantasy Japan, an exotic locale far away from contemporary Britain, Gilbert was able to satirise British politics more freely and soften the impact of his criticisms of British social institutions, in a similar way that he used other "foreign" settings in Princess Ida , The Gondoliers , Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke . Nevertheless, some 21st-century productions of

2599-478: 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

2712-408: Is a comedy, yet it deals with themes of death and cruelty. This juxtaposition works because Gilbert treats these themes as trivial, even lighthearted issues. For instance, in the song "Our great Mikado, virtuous man", Pish-Tush 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

2825-650: Is described by the Mikado as a "humorous but lingering" punishment. Death is treated as a businesslike event in Gilbert's topsy-turvy world. 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

2938-400: Is impossible for me to do another piece of the character of those already written by Gilbert and myself". Gilbert, who had already started work on a new libretto in which people fall in love against their wills after taking a magic lozenge, was surprised to hear of Sullivan's hesitation. He wrote to Sullivan asking him to reconsider, but the composer replied on 2 April 1884 that he had "come to

3051-459: 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 . The Japanese were ambivalent toward The Mikado for many years. Some Japanese critics saw

3164-462: Is not difficult to imagine how Asian-Americans found the racial cross-dressing unbearable, as it may have reminded them of painful incidents of discrimination that they face as a minority in America." The company redesigned its Mikado production and debuted the new concept in December 2016, receiving a warm review from The New York Times . After Lamplighters Music Theatre of San Francisco planned

3277-443: Is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. A feature on Chicago Lyric Opera 's 2010 production noted that the opera "has been in constant production for the past 125 years", citing its "inherent humor and tunefulness". The Mikado has been admired by other composers. Dame Ethel Smyth wrote of Sullivan, "One day he presented me with a copy of the full score of The Golden Legend , adding: 'I think this

3390-474: Is performed twice, first by Nanki-Poo in a new early scene in which he serenades Yum-Yum at her window, and later in the traditional spot. A new prologue which showed Nanki-Poo fleeing in disguise was also added, and much of the Act II music was cut. In 1966, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made a film version of The Mikado that closely reflected their traditional staging, although there are some minor cuts. It

3503-411: Is scheduled to marry Ko-Ko on the very day that he has returned ("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 ("As some day it may happen"), such as people "who eat peppermint and puff it in your face". Yum-Yum appears with Ko-Ko's other two wards, Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing ("Comes

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3616-471: 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

3729-482: Is set in a swanky 1920s English seaside hotel, with sets and costumes in black and white "as an homage to the Marx Brothers , Noël Coward , and Busby Berkeley ". Canada's Stratford Festival has produced The Mikado several times, first in 1963 and again in 1982 (revived in 1983 and 1984) and in 1993. The following table shows the history of the D'Oyly Carte productions in Gilbert's lifetime: The Mikado

3842-443: Is the best thing I've done, don't you?' and when truth compelled me to say that in my opinion The Mikado is his masterpiece, he cried out: 'O you wretch!' But though he laughed, I could see he was disappointed." 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: Role of Go-To added from April 1885 ²For

3955-718: The Chichibu Mikado was performed at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in England. Since the 1990s, some productions of the opera in the United States have drawn criticism from the Asian-American community as promoting "simplistic orientalist stereotypes". In 2014, after a production in Seattle , Washington, drew national attention to such criticism, the Gilbert biographer Andrew Crowther wrote that The Mikado "does not portray any of

4068-521: The Cinematophone sound-on-disc system to synchronize phonograph recordings ( Phonoscène ) of the performers singing and speaking with the silent footage of the performance. The first full-length film of the opera, called Fan Fan , was a 1918 silent film with a cast of children; theatres could show the film with live musical accompaniment. In 1926, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made a brief promotional film of excerpts from The Mikado . Some of

4181-470: The Nihon-shiki system, in which the name 秩父 appears as "Titibu". Thus, it is easy to surmise that "Titibu", found in the London press of 1884, became "Titipu" in the opera. Japanese researchers speculate that Gilbert may have heard of Chichibu silk, an important export in the 19th century. The town's Japanese-language adaptation of The Mikado has been revived several times throughout Japan and, in 2006,

4294-599: The Royalty Theatre , starring Santley, and The Golden Ring starring Marion Hood (1883). The latter was written for the reopening of the Alhambra Theatre , which had been burned to the ground the year before. These shows were both successful and, in Gänzl's view, showed an artistic advance on Clay's earlier work. Clay had been in precarious health during the year, and had been obliged to abandon work on

4407-647: The Tribune interview, Gilbert also related that he and Sullivan had decided to cut the only solo sung by the opera's title character (who appears only in Act II, played by Savoy veteran Richard Temple ), 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 the excised 'number'". Gentlemen of the fictitious Japanese town of Titipu are gathered ("If you want to know who we are"). A handsome but poor minstrel, Nanki-Poo, arrives and introduces himself ("A wand'ring minstrel I"). He inquires about his beloved,

4520-652: The West End and in New York. Clay's other compositions include cantatas and numerous individual songs. His last two works were both successful operas composed in 1883, The Merry Duchess and The Golden Ring . He then suffered a stroke that paralysed him at the age of 44 and ended his career. The historian Kurt Gänzl has called Clay "the first significant composer of the modern era of British musical theatre", but even his most successful stage works were soon eclipsed by those of Gilbert and Sullivan. During his lifetime he

4633-438: The West End it attracted mixed notices, both for the libretto and the score. The Times ' s later comment that the piece was "probably surpassed by no modern English work of the kind for gaiety and melodious charm" was not generally shared: a recurring theme in reviews was that Clay's music was musicianly and pleasing but not strikingly original or memorable. At its first London production Princess Toto ran for less than

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4746-480: The topsy-turvey ideas the librettist was to develop in his later collaborations with Sullivan and others. The premiere was enthusiastically received – in a favourable review The Morning Post noted that almost every number was encored – but the piece ran for only 26 performances. The next three, In Possession (1871, for German Reed), Happy Arcadia (1872, with Gilbert), and Oriana (1873, with James Albery ) all had short London runs. Clay contributed some of

4859-444: The "lozenge plot", stating that it was too similar to the plot of their 1877 opera The Sorcerer . As April 1884 wore on, Gilbert tried to modify his plot, but he could not satisfy Sullivan. 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 unequaled in its monetary results, and hitherto undisturbed by

4972-410: The 1896–97 revival, Temple returned to play The Mikado during January and February 1896, and again from November 1896 – February 1897. 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. A three-minute silent film of

5085-624: The 1926 season and were used until 1982. Peter Goffin designed new sets in 1952. In America, as had happened with H.M.S. Pinafore , the first productions were unauthorised, but once D'Oyly Carte's 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. More than 150 unauthorised versions cropped up, and, as had been

5198-683: The American singer Kenny Baker as Nanki-Poo and Jean Colin as Yum-Yum. Many of the other leads and choristers were or had been members of the D'Oyly Carte company. 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. Art direction and costume designs were by Marcel Vertès . There were some revisions – The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze

5311-599: The British fascination with Japan and the Far East in the 1880s. 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." The Mikado "was never a story about Japan but about the failings of the British government". By setting the opera in a foreign land, Gilbert felt able to more sharply criticise British society and institutions. G. K. Chesterton compared

5424-818: The English-speaking world and beyond since the 1880s. One production during World War I was given in the Ruhleben internment camp in Germany. 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 numerous times over three decades,

5537-565: The Japanese aesthetic [in the 1880s]." Gilbert sought authenticity in the Japanese setting, costumes, movements and gestures of the actors. To that end, he 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 thanked in the programme that was distributed on the first night. Sullivan inserted into his score, as "Miya sama",

5650-498: The adaptation, writing that The Mikado ' s "story is universalizing and could be set anywhere on the planet in any society". Modern productions update some of the words and phrases in The Mikado . For example, two songs in the opera use the word " nigger ". In "As some day it may happen", often called the "list song", Ko-Ko names "the nigger serenader and the others of his race". In the Mikado's song, "A more humane Mikado",

5763-558: The advisability of grouping them as three Japanese school-girls", the opera's "three little maids". He also recounted that a young Japanese lady, a tea server at the Japanese Village, came to rehearsals to coach the three women in Japanese dance. 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!" In

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5876-418: The article about his friend in the early editions of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians . He said of Clay's music: In the article in the 2001 edition of Grove , Christopher Knowles sums up Clay's music: His melodies are always fresh and graceful; his harmonic treatment, though sometimes strikingly original, owes much to Rossini and Auber . Successful though he was, he never really broke away from

5989-458: The audience) is kept fixed with gruesome persistence... [Gilbert] has unquestionably succeeded in imbuing society with his own quaint, scornful, inverted philosophy; and has thereby established a solid claim to rank amongst the foremost of those latter-day Englishmen who have exercised a distinct psychical influence upon their contemporaries." The opera is named after the Emperor of Japan using

6102-493: The broad idea,' as he said later. His journalistic mind, always quick to seize on topicalities, turned to a Japanese Exhibition which had recently been opened in the neighbourhood. Gilbert had seen the little Japanese men and women from the Exhibition shuffling in their exotic robes through the streets of Knightsbridge. Now he sat at his writing desk and picked up the quill pen. He began making notes in his plot-book. The story

6215-492: The case with Pinafore , Carte, Gilbert and Sullivan could do nothing to prevent them or to capture any license fees, since there was no international copyright treaty at the time. Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte tried various techniques for gaining an American copyright that would prevent unauthorised productions. The U.S. courts held, however, that the act of publication made the opera freely available for production by anyone. In Australia, The Mikado 's first authorised performance

6328-409: The characters as being 'racially inferior' or indeed fundamentally any different from British people. The point of the opera is to reflect British culture through the lens of an invented 'other', a fantasy Japan that has only the most superficial resemblance to reality." For example, the starting point for the plot of The Mikado is "an invented 'Japanese' law against flirting, which makes sense only as

6441-551: 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 reveal himself to his father. Nanki-Poo fears that Katisha will demand his execution if she finds he is alive, but he suggests that if Katisha could be persuaded to marry Ko-Ko, then Nanki-Poo could safely "come to life again", as Katisha would have no claim on him ("The flowers that bloom in

6554-513: The delight of musical comedy in the other". In his free time he studied music with Moritz Hauptmann in Leipzig , and composed what his biographer Christopher Knowles calls "songs and light operas for the drawing rooms of high society". With his fellow Treasury clerk B. C. Stephenson as librettist he wrote three one-act operettas for amateurs: The Pirate's Isle (1859), Out of Sight (1860) and The Bold Recruit (1868). The Era commented on

6667-422: The depiction of the title character as a disrespectful representation of the revered Meiji Emperor ; Japanese theatre was prohibited from depicting the emperor on stage. 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

6780-469: The drawing-room ballad and, lacking Sullivan’s sense of fun and powers of invention, remained largely in his shadow. Although even his most successful stage works were soon eclipsed by those of Gilbert and Sullivan , and his music was widely regarded as musicianly and pleasing but not particularly original or memorable, in Gänzl's view he was "the first significant composer of the modern era of British musical theatre". Numerous, including "She Wandered Down

6893-493: The end of my tether" with the operas: I have been continually keeping down the music in order that not one [syllable] should be lost. ... I should like to set a story of human interest & probability where the humorous words would come in a humorous (not serious) situation, & where, if the situation were a tender or dramatic one the words would be of similar character. Gilbert wrote that Sullivan's letter caused him "considerable pain". Sullivan responded that he could not set

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7006-406: 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. In a review of the original production of The Mikado , after praising the show generally, the critic noted that

7119-469: The entire story in doubt is Cellier and Bridgeman's error concerning the Japanese Village exhibition in Knightsbridge : it did not open until 10 January 1885, eight months after Gilbert sent the outline of the plot to Sullivan and almost two months after Gilbert had completed Act I. Gilbert scholar Brian Jones, in his article "The Sword that Never Fell", notes that "the further removed in time

7232-416: The familiar story of how Gilbert found his inspiration: Gilbert, having determined to leave his own country alone for a while, sought elsewhere for a subject suitable to his peculiar humour. A trifling accident inspired him with an idea. One day an old Japanese sword that, for years, had been hanging on the wall of his study, fell from its place. This incident directed his attention to Japan. Just at that time

7345-432: The far east, gleaned by Gilbert from the glimpses of Japanese fashion and art that immediately followed the beginning of trade between the two island empires, and during rehearsals Gilbert visited the popular Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge , London. A critic wrote in 2016: "It has been argued that the theatricality of the show was ... a tribute on the part of Gilbert and Sullivan to the growing British appreciation of

7458-503: The festivities are interrupted by the arrival of Katisha, who has come to claim Nanki-Poo as her husband. But the townspeople are sympathetic to the young couple, and Katisha's attempts to reveal Nanki-Poo's secret are drowned out by their shouting. Outwitted but not defeated, Katisha makes clear that she intends to be avenged. Yum-Yum's friends are preparing her for her wedding ("Braid the raven hair"). She muses on her own beauty ("The sun whose rays"), but Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo remind her of

7571-401: 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. The Mikado was revived again while The Grand Duke was in preparation. When it became clear that that opera was not a success, The Mikado

7684-478: The fundamental absurdity of life". Some commentators dismissed the criticism as political correctness but a public discussion of the issue in Seattle a month later drew a large crowd who nearly all agreed that, although works like The Mikado should not be abandoned in their traditional form, there should be "some kind of contextualizing apparatus to show that the producers and performers are at least thinking about

7797-708: The interregnum until The Yeomen of the Guard was ready, including The Mikado , just 17 months after its first run closed. On 4 September 1891, D'Oyly Carte's touring "C" company gave a Royal Command Performance of The Mikado at Balmoral Castle before Queen Victoria and the Royal Family. The original set design was by Hawes Craven , with men's costumes by C. Wilhelm . The first provincial production of The Mikado opened on 27 July 1885 in Brighton , with several members of that company leaving in August to present

7910-468: The lady who modifies her appearance excessively is to be punished by being "blacked like a nigger with permanent walnut juice". These references are to white performers in blackface minstrel shows , a popular entertainment in the Victorian era, rather than to dark-skinned people. Until well into the 20th century, British people did not consider the word "nigger" offensive. Audience members objected to

8023-574: The law forbids them to flirt ("Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted"). Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah receive news that the Mikado has just decreed that unless an execution is carried out in Titipu 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 argues that it would be "extremely difficult, not to say dangerous", for someone to attempt to behead himself, and that suicide

8136-461: The limited duration of her approaching union with Nanki-Poo. 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, 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

8249-458: The little list song, to take advantage of opportunities for topical jokes. Richard Suart , a singer well known in the role of Ko-Ko, published a book containing a history of rewrites of the little list song, including many of his own. As soon as the opera premiered, Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte began to license numerous products that used the opera's name, characters, lyrics, lines and designs, not just for licensing fees, but to drive ticket sales;

8362-504: The longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. By the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera. The Mikado is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been 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. The Mikado

8475-615: The male chorus, the female dancing chorus and the orchestra were Japanese. General Douglas MacArthur banned a large-scale professional 1947 Tokyo production by an all-Japanese cast, but other productions have occurred in Japan. For example, the opera was performed at the Ernie Pyle Theatre in Tokyo in 1970, presented by the Eighth Army Special Service. In 2001, the town of Chichibu (秩父), Japan, under

8588-453: The middle daughter, Rachel. The Scott Russells welcomed the engagement of Alice and Clay, but it was broken off, for unknown reasons. Alice married another suitor in 1869; Clay remained single all his life. In 1866 Clay's first cantata, The Knights of the Cross was performed in London, conducted by Sullivan. It was politely received, but the composer's "talent and good taste" did not, in

8701-463: The most famous Savoyards of the day 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 film adaptation of The Mikado . Made in Technicolor , the film stars Martyn Green as Ko-Ko, Sydney Granville as Pooh-Bah,

8814-559: The music for other London shows in these years, including the extravaganzas Ali Baba à la Mode (1872) and Don Giovanni in Venice (1873), the "grand opéra-bouffe féerie" The Black Crook (1872) and the "fantastic music drama" Babil and Bijou, or The Lost Regalia (1872). The last of these, given at Covent Garden was a spectacular production that ran for some eight months and attracted highly favourable notices for Clay and his fellow composer, Jules Rivière. Foreseeing, and not relishing,

8927-1001: 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." The Mikado was performed more than 200 times in Berlin alone by 1891 and 100 times in Vienna, of just one of the translations available, by 1894; Sullivan went to Berlin in 1900 to conduct the opera at the Royal Opera as a command performance for Kaiser Wilhelm II . Productions continued in German-speaking countries, both authorised and unauthorised by D'Oyly Carte, and productions were also seen in France, Holland, Hungary, Spain, Belgium, Scandinavia, Russia and elsewhere. Thousands of amateur productions have been mounted throughout

9040-473: The name of "Tokyo Theatre Company", produced an adaptation of The Mikado in Japanese. Locals believe that Chichibu was the town Gilbert had in mind when he named his setting "Titipu", but there is no contemporary evidence for this theory. 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

9153-426: The old one closed. On 22 March 1884, Carte gave Gilbert and Sullivan contractual notice that a new opera would be required within six months. Sullivan's close friend, the conductor Frederic Clay , had suffered a serious stroke in December 1883 that effectively ended his career. Reflecting on this, on his own precarious health, and on his desire to devote himself to more serious music, Sullivan replied to Carte that "it

9266-471: The opera in the United States have drawn criticism for promoting stereotypes of East Asians . Gilbert and Sullivan 's opera immediately preceding The Mikado was Princess Ida (1884), which ran for nine months, a short duration by Savoy opera standards. When ticket sales for Princess Ida showed early signs of flagging, the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte realised that, for the first time since 1877, no new Gilbert and Sullivan work would be ready when

9379-587: The opera singer Richard Stilwell , and the performer "Rusty" Russ Thacker. The President and Executive Director of the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., Donn B. Murphy , directed several productions for the company: Show Boat (1961), Finian's Rainbow (1962), South Pacific (1963), The King and I (1964), Camelot (1965) and West Side Story (1966). Some productions toured to Baltimore, Richmond, and Norfolk, VA. In April 1985

9492-580: The opera's satire to that in Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels : "Gilbert pursued and persecuted the evils of modern England till they had literally not a leg to stand on, exactly as Swift did. ... I doubt if there is a single joke in the whole play that fits the Japanese. But all the jokes in the play fit the English. ... About England, Pooh-bah is something more than a satire; he is the truth." The opera's setting draws on Victorian notions of

9605-532: The opinion of one reviewer, result in "much originality of character". In 1869 came Clay's first substantial theatrical success, the "operatic entertainment" Ages Ago , written for the German Reeds at the Royal Gallery of Illustration , with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert . The piece, described by the historian Kurt Gänzl as "an enormous success", ran for 350 performances during its first run, and

9718-413: The orchestra and noted, "Knowing how fine this cast can be in its proper medium, one regrets the impression this Mikado will make on those not fortunate enough to have watched the company in the flesh. The cameras have captured everything about the company's acting except its magic." Video recordings of The Mikado include a 1972 offering from Gilbert and Sullivan for All ; the 1982 Brent-Walker film;

9831-406: 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." After World War II , The Mikado

9944-510: The problems in the work". In 2015 a planned production by the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players was withdrawn after its publicity materials ignited a similar protest in the Asian-American blogosphere. A Tokyo-based writer who was sympathetic to Gilbert and Sullivan's original setting of the opera later noted: "While as a Japanese residing in Japan I am not offended by the production photos [that offended many Asian-Americans], it

10057-427: The provinces who dresses like a guy", where guy refers to the dummy that is part of Guy Fawkes Night , meaning a tasteless woman who dresses like a scarecrow . In the 1908 revival Gilbert allowed substitutions for "the lady novelist". To avoid distracting the audience with references that have become offensive over time, lyrics are sometimes modified in modern productions. Changes are also often made, especially in

10170-438: The ruler has come to see whether an execution has been carried out. Aided by Pitti-Sing and Pooh-Bah, he graphically describes the supposed execution ("The criminal cried") and hands the Mikado the certificate of death, signed and sworn to by Pooh-Bah as coroner. Ko-Ko notes slyly that most of the town's important officers (that is, Pooh-Bah) were present at the ceremony. But the Mikado has come about an entirely different matter: he

10283-459: The second of these: "The composer is an amateur, but he has shown a dramatic power and a skill in instrumentation that would justify him in entering the lists with professional musicians". Clay had a modest operatic success with a one-act operetta, Court and Cottage , to a libretto by Tom Taylor , produced at Covent Garden in 1862 as an after-piece to Meyerbeer's Dinorah . A second one-act piece for Covent Garden followed in 1865: Constance ,

10396-433: The show "was by far the most successful example [of merchandising] in the 19th century". Mikado trading cards were created that advertised various products. Other Mikado products included figurines, fabrics, jewelry, perfumes, puzzles, toothpaste, soap, games, wallpaper, corsets, sewing thread and stoves. The Mikado became the most frequently performed Savoy Opera and has been translated into numerous languages. It

10509-414: The show's humour nevertheless depends on "unsparing exposure of human weaknesses and follies – things grave and even horrible invested with a ridiculous aspect – all the motives prompting our actions traced back to inexhaustible sources of selfishness and cowardice... Decapitation, disembowelment, immersion in boiling oil or molten lead are the eventualities upon which [the characters'] attention (and that of

10622-416: The smaller Trinity Theatre to the larger Lisner Auditorium, which they had difficulty filling consistently; the financial problems eventually forced them to shut down. Their final performance was West Side Story performed at Western High School in Washington D.C. on 28 January 1968. Notable past performers with the company include the actress Georgia Engel , the dancer and choreographer George Faison ,

10735-504: The spot. It turns out that the soft-hearted Ko-Ko has never executed anyone and cannot execute Nanki-Poo. Instead, he 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 accompanied by a large procession ("Mi-ya Sa-Ma", "From Every Kind of Man"). The Mikado describes his system of justice ("A more humane Mikado"). Ko-Ko assumes that

10848-406: The spring"). Though Katisha is "something appalling", Ko-Ko has no choice: it is marriage to Katisha or painful death for himself, Pitti-Sing and Pooh-Bah. Ko-Ko finds 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 story of

10961-472: The stage. Although from a musical family, for 16 years Clay made his living as a civil servant in HM Treasury , composing in his spare time, until a legacy in 1873 enabled him to become a full-time composer. He had his first big stage success with Ages Ago (1869), a short comic opera with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert , for the small Gallery of Illustration ; it ran well and was repeatedly revived. Clay,

11074-437: The term mikado (御門 or 帝 or みかど), literally meaning "the honourable gate" of the imperial palace, referring metaphorically to its occupant and to the palace itself. The term was commonly used by the English in the 19th century but became obsolete. To the extent that the opera portrays Japanese culture, style and government, it is a fictional version of Japan used to provide a picturesque setting and to capitalise on Japonism and

11187-408: The town 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 execute himself, no executions could take place. But all the town officials, except the haughty nobleman Pooh-Bah, proved too proud to serve under an ex-tailor and resigned. Pooh-Bah now holds all their posts and collects all their salaries. He informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum

11300-423: The well-regarded 1984 Stratford Festival video; and the 1986 English National Opera production (abridged). Opera Australia have released videos of their 1987 and 2011 productions. Since the 1990s, several professional productions have been recorded on video by the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival . The Mikado was adapted as a children's book by W. S. Gilbert titled The Story of The Mikado , which

11413-428: The word during the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's 1948 American tour, however, and Rupert D'Oyly Carte asked A. P. Herbert to supply revised wording. These alterations have been incorporated into the opera's libretto and score since then. Also included in the little list song are "the lady novelist" (referring to writers of fluffy romantic novels; these had been lampooned earlier by George Eliot ) and "the lady from

11526-400: The writer is from the incident, the more graphically it is recalled." Leslie Baily , for instance, told it this way in 1952: A day or so later Gilbert was striding up and down his library in the new house at Harrington Gardens, fuming at the impasse, when a huge Japanese sword decorating the wall fell with a clatter to the floor. Gilbert picked it up. His perambulations stopped. 'It suggested

11639-462: Was Gilbert's last literary work. It is a retelling of The Mikado with various changes to simplify language or make it more suitable for children. For example, in the "little list" song, the phrase "society offenders" is changed to "inconvenient people", and the second verse is largely rewritten. Frederic Clay Frederic Emes Clay (3 August 1838 – 24 November 1889) was an English composer known principally for songs and his music written for

11752-467: Was best known for his parlour songs , which were familiar throughout Britain. Clay's music was widely regarded as not particularly original or memorable, but musicianly and pleasing. Clay was born in Paris, the fourth of six children of James Clay (1804–1873) and his wife, Eliza Camilla, née Woolrych. James Clay was a Radical Member of Parliament and was also well known as a player of and authority on whist . Both parents were musical: Clay's mother

11865-404: Was dramatised in more or less this form in the 1999 film Topsy-Turvy . But although the 1885–87 Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge had not opened when Gilbert conceived of The Mikado , European trade with Japan had increased in recent decades, and an English craze for all things Japanese had built through the 1860s and 1870s. This made the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert told

11978-401: Was filmed on enlarged stage sets rather than on location, much like the 1965 Laurence Olivier Othello , and was directed by the same director, Stuart Burge . It stars John Reed , Kenneth Sandford , Valerie Masterson , Philip Potter , Donald Adams , Christene Palmer and Peggy Ann Jones and was conducted by Isidore Godfrey . The New York Times criticised the filming technique and

12091-549: Was followed by a commission from Kate Santley for an opéra-bouffe , Cattarina, or Friends at Court , with a libretto by Reece. This successfully toured the provinces, with the composer conducting and Santley starring as Pincione; it was given at the Charing Cross Theatre , London, during the winter season of 1874–75. The final collaboration between Clay and Gilbert was a three-act comic opera, Princess Toto , (1876), another vehicle for Santley. On tour and in

12204-504: 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. It was included, however, in Mrs. Carte's second repertory season, in 1908–09. New costume designs were created by Charles Ricketts for

12317-516: Was given successfully at the Brighton Festival in 1877, and was later performed elsewhere in Britain and the US. Clay found a lack of opportunity in Britain and moved to the US in 1877. He met with only mixed success there and returned to London in 1881. His last stage works were two collaborations with the librettist G. R. Sims : a "sporting comic opera", The Merry Duchess , (1883) given at

12430-464: Was on 14 November 1885 at the Theatre Royal, Sydney , produced by J. C. Williamson . During 1886, Carte was touring five Mikado companies in North America. Carte toured the opera in 1886 and again in 1887 in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. In September 1886 Vienna's leading critic, Eduard Hanslick , wrote that the opera's "unparalleled success" was attributable not only to the libretto and

12543-476: Was revived several times. The first production was in a double bill with Sullivan's Cox and Box . Clay dedicated the published score of Ages Ago to Sullivan; at a rehearsal of the piece, probably in 1870, Gilbert met Sullivan for the first time, introduced by Clay. Over the next four years Clay composed four further operatic pieces. The first, The Gentleman in Black (1870, with Gilbert), contained many of

12656-467: Was staged in Japan in a number of private performances. The first public production, given at three performances, was in 1946 in the Ernie Pyle Theatre in Tokyo, conducted by the pianist Jorge Bolet for the entertainment of American troops and Japanese audiences. The set and costumes were opulent, and the principal players were American, Canadian, and British, as were the women's chorus, but

12769-471: Was the daughter of a leading opera singer, and his father was an amateur composer. Clay was educated at home in London by private tutors, and studied piano and violin, and later composition under Bernhard Molique . Through the influence of Lord Palmerston , Clay secured a post in HM Treasury , and was for a time private secretary to Benjamin Disraeli , who presented him at a court levee in 1859. Under

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