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 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,^[1] 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.^[2]

Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from the United Kingdom, allowed Gilbert to satirize British 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.

Contents 1 Origins of the work 2 Themes of death in the comedy 3 Controversy; political correctness 3.1 Not actually a Japanese opera 3.2 Alleged racism and sexism 4 Roles 5 Synopsis 5.1 Act II 6 Musical numbers 6.1 Act I 6.2 Act II 7 Productions 8 Historical casting 9 Film versions 10 Adaptations 11 References in popular culture 11.1 References to The Mikado and its characters 11.2 References to songs in The Mikado 12 Notes 13 References 14 See also 15 External links

[edit] 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 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. (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."[3]

[edit] 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.

[edit] Controversy; political correctness

[edit] 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. 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 (which also means "here" in Japanese); 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's name, Nanki-Poo, is baby-talk for "handkerchief"; and the long-nailed woman scorned is 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.[4]

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.[5] General Douglas MacArthur actually banned a 1947 Tokyo production,[6] 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 (秩父), 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. 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.^[3] 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 could not resist the temptation to produce its own Japanese-language adaptation 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^[4] and the same company continues to perform the adaptation on tour in Japan in 2007.

[edit] 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 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),[7] 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 – 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 further, 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 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 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 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 theatre.

[edit] Roles

• The Mikado of Japan (bass)
• 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 (bass-baritone)
• Pish-Tush, A Noble Lord (baritone or bass-baritone^[5])
• [Go-To] (bass)^[6]
• Yum-Yum (soprano), Pitti-Sing (mezzo-soprano), and Peep-Bo (soprano), Three Sisters, Wards of Ko-Ko
• Katisha, An Elderly lady, in love with Nanki-Poo (contralto)
• Chorus of School-Girls, Nobles, Guards, and Coolies

[edit] Synopsis

Act I

Gentlemen of the Japanese town of Titipu gather ("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 love, the maiden Yum-Yum, a ward of Ko-Ko (formerly a cheap tailor). One of the gentlemen, Pish-Tush, explains how when the Mikado had decreed that flirting was a capital crime, the Titipu authorites appointed Ko-Ko, a prisoner condemned to death for flirting, to the post of Lord High Executioner ("Our great Mikado, virtous man"). They reasoned that by elevating the prisoner who was next in line to be executed to the post of Lord High Executioner, they could effectively place a moratorium on executions. 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"), new to his appointed position, and asserts himself by reading off a list of potential people to be executed ("I've got a little list").

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. Once the young lovers are alone, Nanki-Poo reveals his secret to Yum-Yum – he is the son and heir of the Mikado, but traveling 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's 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. 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 states that it would be awkward, not to mention dangerous, for him to attempt to execute himself. Fortuitously, Ko-Ko discovers that Nanki-Poo, in despair over losing Yum-Yum, is preparing to commit suicide. After determining 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.

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, she makes such a bad impression on the people of Titipu that her words are drowned out by the shouting of the crowd. Outwitted but not defeated, Katisha makes it clear that she intends to return.

[edit] Act II

• Ko-Ko's Garden.

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"). Nanki-Poo challenges Ko-Ko to behead him on the spot, but it turns out that Ko-Ko has never executed anyone and cannot execute Nanki-Poo, because he is too soft-hearted. Ko-Ko instead sends Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum away to be wed, 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 ("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 coroner's report. However, the Mikado has come about an entirely different matter – he is searching for his son, Nanki-Poo. Katisha notes with horror that the coroner's report clearly states that the person executed was Nanki-Poo, and the Mikado and Katisha discuss the statutory punishment for compassing the death of the heir apparent to the Imperial throne. With the three conspirators facing painful execution, Ko-Ko pleads with Nanki-Poo to return. Nanki-Poo notes that if Ko-Ko could pursuade Katisha to marry him, then Nanki-Poo could safely "come to life again" ("The flowers that bloom in the spring").

Ko-Ko discovers Katisha mourning her loss ("Alone, and yet alive") and throws himself on her mercy. He begs for her hand in marriage ("Tit-willow"), saying that he has long harboured a passion for her. She agrees ("There is beauty in the bellow of the blast") and, once the ceremony is perfomed (by Pooh-Bah, the Registrar), begs mercy for him and his "accomplices" from the Mikado. Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum then re-appear, to Katisha's impotent fury, but the Mikado deems everything to be "satisfactory", and so Titipu celebrates ("For he's gone and married Yum-Yum").

[edit] 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")

[edit] 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)^[7]
• 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!"

[edit] Act II

• 12. "Braid the raven hair" (Pitti-Sing and Girls)
• 13. "The sun whose rays are all ablaze" (Yum-Yum)
• 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)

[edit] 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:

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.

[edit] 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:

Role	Savoy Theatre 1885	Fifth Avenue 1885	Savoy Theatre 1888	Savoy Theatre 1895	Savoy Theatre 1908
The Mikado	Richard Temple	F. Federici	Richard Temple	R. Scott Fishe2	Henry Lytton
Nanki-Poo	Durward Lely	Courtice Pounds	J. G. Robertson	Charles Kenningham	Strafford Moss
Ko-Ko	George Grossmith	George Thorne	George Grossmith	Walter Passmore	Charles H. Workman
Pooh-Bah	Rutland Barrington	Fred Billington	Rutland Barrington	Rutland Barrington	Rutland Barrington
Pish-Tush	Frederick Bovill	Charles Richards	Richard Cummings	Jones Hewson	Leicester Tunks
Go-To	Rudolph Lewis	R. H. Edgar	Rudolph Lewis		Fred Drawater
Yum-Yum	Leonora Braham	Geraldine Ulmar	Geraldine Ulmar	Florence Perry	Clara Dow
Pitti-Sing	Jessie Bond	Kate Forster	Jessie Bond	Jessie Bond	Jessie Rose
Peep-Bo	Sybil Grey	Geraldine St. Maur	Sybil Grey	Emmie Owen	Beatrice Boarer
Katisha	Rosina Brandram	Elsie Cameron	Rosina Brandram	Rosina Brandram	Louie Rene

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.

Role	D'Oyly Carte 1915 Tour	D'Oyly Carte 1925 Tour	D'Oyly Carte 1935 Tour	D'Oyly Carte 1945 Tour	D'Oyly Carte 1951 Tour
The Mikado	Leicester Tunks	Darrell Fancourt	Darrell Fancourt	Darrell Fancourt	Darrell Fancourt
Nanki-Poo	Dewey Gibson	Charles Goulding	Charles Goulding	John Dean	Neville Griffiths
Ko-Ko	Henry Lytton	Henry Lytton	Martyn Green	Grahame Clifford	Martyn Green
Pooh-Bah	Fred Billington	Leo Sheffield	Sydney Granville	Richard Walker	Richard Watson
Pish-Tush	Frederick Hobbs	Henry Millidge	Richard Walker	Wynn Dyson	Alan Styler
Go-To		T. Penry Hughes	L. Radley Flynn	L. Radley Flynn	Donald Harris
Yum-Yum	Elsie McDermid	Elsie Griffin	Sylvia Cecil	Helen Roberts	Margaret Mitchell
Pitti-Sing	Nellie Briercliffe	Aileen Davies	Marjorie Eyre	Marjorie Eyre	Joan Gillingham
Peep-Bo	Betty Grylls	Dorothy Gates	Elizabeth Nickell-Lean	June Field	Joyce Wright
Katisha	Bertha Lewis	Bertha Lewis	Dorothy Gill	Ella Halman	Ella Halman

Role	D'Oyly Carte 1955 Tour	D'Oyly Carte 1965 Tour	D'Oyly Carte 1975 Tour	D'Oyly Carte 1982 Tour
The Mikado	Donald Adams	Donald Adams	John Ayldon	John Ayldon
Nanki-Poo	Neville Griffiths	Philip Potter	Colin Wright	Geoffrey Shovelton
Ko-Ko	Peter Pratt	John Reed	John Reed	James Conroy-Ward
Pooh-Bah	Fisher Morgan	Kenneth Sandford	Kenneth Sandford	Kenneth Sandford
Pish-Tush	Jeffrey Skitch	Thomas Lawlor	Michael Rayner	Peter Lyon
Go-To	John Banks	George Cook	John Broad	Thomas Scholey
Yum-Yum	Cynthia Morey	Valerie Masterson	Julia Goss	Vivian Tierney
Pitti-Sing	Joyce Wright	Peggy Ann Jones	Judi Merri	Lorraine Daniels
Peep-Bo	Beryl Dixon	Pauline Wales	Patricia Leonard	Roberta Morrell
Katisha	Ann Drummond-Grant	Christene Palmer	Lyndsie Holland	Patricia Leonard

[edit] Film versions

In 1926, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company made a brief promotional film of The Mikado.[8] 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.[9] 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.

[edit] Adaptations

• Bell Telephone Hour version featuring Groucho Marx as Ko-Ko, Stanley Holloway and Helen Traubel, directed by Martyn Green (1960)
• The Black Mikado
• The Chichibu production of the "Tokyo Theatre Company"^[8]
• 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 Mikado
• The Swing Mikado was an adaptation of The Mikado with an all-black cast, using swing music, that premiered in Chicago in 1938.

[edit] References in popular culture

• Many well-known actors have at some time in their careers played the role of Ko-Ko. Groucho Marx, a life-long fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, starred in a made-for-TV production of The Mikado in 1960. Other well-known actors who have played the role of Ko-Ko are Eric Idle and Bill Oddie, with both appearing in the same English National Opera production of "The Mikado" (Bill Oddie took over the role of Ko-Ko after Eric Idle left the production). Dudley Moore played the role when the production toured the United States.

[edit] References to The Mikado and its characters

• The phrase "A short, sharp shock", heard in the Act 1 song "I am so proud" has entered the 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 manifestoes. Likewise "Let the punishment fit the crime" (though the concept, and similar phrases, long predate Gilbert)^{[citation needed]} is an often-used phrase and is particularly mentioned in the course of British political debates.

• The name Pooh-Bah has come to stand for anyone with no real authority but who acts otherwise, as in the expression The Grand Pooh-Bah, first introduced in episodes of The Flintstones.

• The Zodiac Killer murdered at least seven people in the San Francisco Bay area between 1966 and 1970. His letters to police and the media often quoted The Mikado. A second-season episode of the TV show Millennium titled "The Mikado" is based on the Zodiac case.

• In Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the cat owned by one of the main characters is named "Pitti-Sing"

• The climax of the 1978 film Foul Play takes place during a performance of The Mikado. In this film, Dudley Moore appears as the orchestra conductor of the opera.

• In the mystery series of novels, Cat Who, two of the three main characters are cats. One, the male, is nicknamed Koko for everyday purposes (his real name being Kao K'o Kung). The other, the female, came in during the second book and is named "Yum Yum" after a "Psycatatrist's" comment about this opera: "Why, it's just like Gilbert and Sullivan! [...] For he is going to marry Yum-Yum, te dum"

• In the television series Magnum, P.I. Episode 80 from the fourth season, is entitled "Let the Punishment Fit the Crime," a line from the Mikado song "A More Humane Mikado Never Did In Japan Exist." In the episode, Higgins is preparing 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."

[edit] References to songs in The Mikado

• Rian Johnson's 2005 film Brick features a scene where Laura (Nora Zehetner), the femme fatale, performs a section from "The Sun Whose Rays" while playing the piano at a party. Originally, she performed the entire piece, but the second half was edited for time. The entire performance is contained on track 3 of the soundtrack.

• In The Producers, a terrible auditioner for the musical Springtime for Hitler begins his audition with Nanki-Poo's song, "A Wand'ring Minstrel I". He gets only nine words into the song, when the director cuts him off abruptly with "THANK YOU!"

• There are at least two episodes of Blackadder Goes Forth where parts of "A Wand'ring Minstrel I" is played. Once on a gramaphone at the beginning of the first episode, and once in the episode involving "Speckled Jim," when Blackadder pretends that he can't hear Captain Darling at the other end of the telephone and sings the beginning of the song to imitate a crossed line.

• The movie poster for The Little Shop of Horrors, shown to the right, parodies the song title, "The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring," changing the word "bloom" to "kill".

References to "Three Little Maids":

• In the Simpsons episode entitled "Cape Feare," the Simpsons sing along to "Three Little Maids" on the radio in their car.

• In the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, Harold Abrahams first sees his future wife as one of the "Three Little Maids from School".

• In the CSI episode "Suckers", a case is solved thanks to Grissom's remembering the song "Three little maids from school are we", and there are many references to The Mikado.^{[citation needed]}

• There are amateur performances of "Three Little Maids from School" in British comedy television series such as Keep it in the Family and Fresh Fields.

• In Frasier episode "Leapin' Lizards", workplace prankster Bulldog impersonates the voice of an esteemed friend of Niles Crane in a phone call to Frasier. After Frasier boasts that many have asked to see his "Yum-Yum", he is coaxed into going into his best falsetto voice to perform "Three Little Maids" live over the air.

• In the Angel episode "Hole in the World", Charles Gunn sings "Three Little Maids from School are We," and when he is caught by Wesley, tries to cover by rapping, badly.

• The Chipmunks perform "Three Little Maids" in the episode "Maids in Japan" on Alvin and the Chipmunks. Alvin signs up himself and his brothers in a kabuki theatre to gain publicity in Japan, but it goes terribly awry after they are to perform female roles (onnagata). After the show, Dave sees them in full costume and make-up and thinks they are some local girls.

• In The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Zack, Cody, and Carey perform "Three Little Maids" when Kumiko Mori is late for her performance.

• In The Animaniacs Vol. 1 Yakko, Wakko, and Dot dressed up in Kimonos and sing "Three Little Maids" to do an audition for Mr. Director to escape Ralph the security guard in the episode "Hello Nice Warners"

• The Capitol Steps performed a parody of "Three Little Maids" entitled "Three Little Kurds from School are We" about conditions in Iraq.

• An instrumental version of "Three Little Maids" is used as background music in several episodes of Larry David's HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm.

References to "Tit-Willow":

• A Muppet Show episode featured Rowlf the Dog singing "On a tree by a river", with the refrain "Oh, willow, tit-willow, tit-willow" being spoken, under protest ("Do we have to do this?"), by Sam the Eagle.^{[citation needed]}

• On another episode of Frasier, Martin, who still values old-fashioned manliness, rolls his eyes upon stating that he's proud of his two sons and then turning to see Frasier and Niles singing the refrain to "Tit-Willow."

• Allan Sherman did a parody of the "Tit-willow" song ("On a tree by a river"), in which the bird in question talks and sings with a stereotypical Jewish accent. Sherman is so impressed by the bird's singing that he takes him down from his branch, and home "to mein split-level ranch". His wife misinterprets the gift and fricassees the bird, whose last words are, "Oy! Willow! Tit-willow! Willow!"

References to the "Little List" song

• Sherman also did a variant on "I've Got a Little List", presenting reasons why one might want to seek psychiatric help, and titled "You Need an Analyst".

• Eureeka's Castle, a children's television show, did a parody of "I've Got a Little List" in a Christmas special, called "Just Put it on the List," wherein the twins, Bogg and Quagmire, describe what they'd like for Christmas.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Baily, Leslie (1952). The Gilbert & Sullivan Book. London: Cassell & Company Ltd. 
• Cellier, François; Cunningham Bridgeman (1914). Gilbert, Sullivan, and D'Oyly Carte. London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons. 
• Jones, Brian (Spring 1985). "The sword that never fell". W. S. Gilbert Society Journal 1 (1): 22–25. 

[edit] See also

• Topsy-Turvy
• Snickersnee

[edit] External links

• The Mikado at The Gilbert & Sullivan Archive
• Article by H. L. Mencken on the impact of The Mikado (from 1910)
• Discussion of The Mikado from the musicals101 site
• Description of preparations for The Mikado
• Description of production history and modern Australian productions
• Article on the genesis of The Mikado
• The Mikado at The Gilbert & Sullivan Discography
• com/ArchivePressText/20021221.html 1885 review of The Mikado in "The Entr'acte".
• Site containing biographies of the people listed in the historical casting chart
• Koko's Korner: A website dedicated almost entirely to the character of Ko-Ko in The Mikado
• Page linking to Mikado song parodies
• List of longest running plays in London and New York
• "Something Vital Breaks..." A spoof on "As Someday It May Happen"

Gilbert and Sullivan
The Triumvirate: W. S. Gilbert | Arthur Sullivan | Richard D'Oyly Carte
The Gilbert and Sullivan Operas: Thespis • Trial by Jury • The Sorcerer • H.M.S. Pinafore • The Pirates of Penzance • Patience • Iolanthe • Princess Ida The Mikado • Ruddigore • The Yeomen of the Guard • The Gondoliers • Utopia, Limited • The Grand Duke
Other Works and People: Other Works by W. S. Gilbert • Other Operas by Arthur Sullivan • Other Music by Arthur Sullivan People associated with Gilbert and Sullivan • Gilbert and Sullivan performers