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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 unprecedented for musical theatre pieces, 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. Indeed, The Mikado is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history.** Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from England, allowed Gilbert to satirize English politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese. Gilbert used foreign locales in several operas, including The Mikado, The Gondoliers, Utopia Limited, The Grand Duke and Princess Ida, 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 only nine months – a short duration by their own standards. As Ida showed signs of flagging, producer Richard D'Oyly Carte realized that, for the first time in the partnership, no new opera would be ready when the old one closed. On March 22, 1884, Richard D'Oyly Carte gave Gilbert and Sullivan contractual notice that a new opera would be required in six months' time. Gilbert initially proposed a story for a new opera about a magic lozenge that would change the characters, which Sullivan found artificial and lacking in "human interest and probability", as well as being too similar to their previous opera, The Sorcerer. It was not until May 8, 1884 that Gilbert dropped the idea, and agreed to provide a libretto without any supernatural elements. (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 opera that was to become 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 (1914) first recorded 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 which, 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 a company of Japanese had arrived in England and set up a little village of their own in Knightsbridge. (Cellier and Bridgeman 1914, p. 186). 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 January 10, 1885, almost two months after Gilbert had already completed Act I. (Jones 1985). Jones notes that "the further removed in time the writer is from the incident, the more graphically it is recalled." (Jones 1985, p. 25). Leslie Baily, for instance, tells it this way: 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 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 neighborhood. 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. (Baily, pp. 235–236). The story was dramatized in more-or-less this form in the 1999 film, Topsy-Turvy. However, even though exhibition in Knightsbridge had not opened when Gilbert conceived of The Mikado, the English craze for all things Japanese 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."* Not really 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. The song "Miya sama", however, is a version of an actual Japanese song (Giacomo Puccini later incorporated the same tune into Madama Butterfly). The characters' names in the play are not real Japanese – but perfectly understandable as English "baby-talk". For instance, the headsman is named Ko-Ko; a pretty young thing is named Pitti-Sing; the heroine is named Yum-Yum; the pompous officials are Pooh-Bah and Pish-Tush; and the hero, Nanki-Poo (baby-talk for "handkerchief") is fleeing from the awful Katisha. The Japanese were ambivalent toward The Mikado for many years, not knowing for certain if it was making fun of them (it wasn't) or of the English (it was). Some Japanese saw the depiction of their ruler as offensive, particularly its depiction of the Mikado, which was seen by some as a disrespectful representation of the revered Meiji Emperor. But 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: 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.* Japanese Prince Komatsa, who saw an 1886 production in London, took no offense. When Crown Prince Fushimi 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." 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", has produced an adaptation of The Mikado in Japanese. Locals claim that Chichibu was the town that Gilbert had in mind when he named his setting "Titipu", although there is no hard evidence for this theory. Ei Rokusuke, a Japanese essayist, was convinced that a peasant uprising in Chichibu in 1884 inspired Gilbert to set the opera in Japan.* 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 could not resist the temptation to produce its own Japanese-language version of The Mikado, which has been performed several times throughout Japan. In August 2006, the Chichibu Mikado was performed at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in England.* Apparent racism and sexism In the song "As Someday it May Happen," sung by Ko-Ko in Act I, the character goes through a "little list" of many irritations with his society (hence Gilbert's). 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. Also included in the list were "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/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 – at the very least, by replacing the word "nigger." 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." Many substitutions have been used, with no particular one becoming standard. Some productions go farther, replacing other snippets, a verse or the entire song with references to contemporary annoyances, political figures, and current events. 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!" The standard replacement for "nigger serenander" 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 protests 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 that are sometimes altered simply to make the references more relevant to modern or non-UK audiences. One is Pooh-Bah's list of titles, which must be kept largely the same due to future references, but may be added to with modern positions, such as "Secretary of Homeland Security". Another is the Mikado's list of punishments and crimes in "A more humane Mikado", which might be made to include modern infractions such as not turning one's cell phone off before entering a theater. Roles Act I Ko-Ko arrives and introduces himself ("I've got a little list") and rejoices in his upcoming marriage. His enthusiasm is cut short by receiving news that the Mikado will soon be arriving for a visit; as Ko-Ko is behind on his quota of executions (never having performed any at all!), this means someone must be executed at once. The others look to Ko-Ko himself as the perfect subject ("I am so proud"). Ko-Ko discovers Nanki-Poo, in despair over losing Yum-Yum, is preparing to commit suicide. After realizing that he cannot 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. This happy arrangement is nearly spoiled by Katisha, who arrives and tries to claim Nanki-Poo ("Oh fool"). However, she makes such a bad impression on the people of Titipu that her words are drowned out by the shouting of the crowd ("For he's going to marry Yum-Yum"). But though all seems happily settled, Katisha makes it clear that she intends to return. Act II
Musical numbers Act I Act II 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 unexpectedly 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 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. 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 authorized 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 American productions were piracies, but once the authorised production opened in August 1885, it was a success, and Carte had several companies touring the show in North America. A production in Vienna, Der Mikado (Ein Tag in Titipu) opened in September 1886. Authorized productions were seen in France, Holland, Australia, 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. The following table shows the history of the D'Oyly Carte productions in Gilbert's lifetime: 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. Film versions 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 full-length technicolor film of The Mikado.* The film stars Martyn Green as Ko-Ko and Sydney Granville as Pooh-Bah. The music was conducted by Geoffrey Toye, a former D'Oyly Carte music director, who was also 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. Adaptations Notes See also | |||||||||
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