Libretto by Sir William S. Gilbert
Music by Sir Arthur S. Sullivan
Drawings by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert
The show opens in the town of Titipu where the chorus of nobles are joined by Nanki-Poo, disguised as a second trombone, who is looking for Yum-Yum, the ward of Ko-Ko. A noble lord named Pish-Tush asks what Nanki-Poo's business is with Yum-Yum, and learns that the minstrel had seen the girl a year ago when he was a member of the town band, and they had fallen in love. But Yum-Yum was betrothed to her guardian Ko-Ko, 'a cheap tailor.' However on learning that Ko-Ko was condemned to death for flirting, the minstrel has hurried back to try to claim Yum-Yum. Unfortunately on his return he finds that far from being dead, Ko-Ko has in fact been let out on bail, and appointed Lord High Executioner. There is worse to come as Pooh-Bah, who holds every major office of state, informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum and Ko-Ko are to be married that very day.
Yum-Yum and her sisters, Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo, appear with their schoolfellows. When Yum-Yum finally catches sight of Nanki-Poo he reveals that he is the son of the Mikado, and when they are alone, she admits she does not love her guardian. The two lovers realise that their cause is hopeless, and Yum-Yum leaves Nanki-Poo who then tries to kill himself. Meanwhile, Ko-Ko has received a letter from the Mikado, who threatens to abolish the post of Lord High Executioner and reduce Titipu to the rank of a village unless a beheading takes place within a month. On seeing Nanki-Poo about to 'terminate an unendurable existence,' Ko-Ko points out that suicide is a capital offence, and offers to do the job professionally. Nanki-Poo agrees, on the condition that he can Marry Yum-Yum and enjoy one month of married life before he is beheaded. After the execution Ko-Ko will then be able to marry the widowed Yum-Yum. Amidst the celebrations in storms Katisha, having tracked down the object of her affections, Nanki-Poo, and threatens to reveal his true identity. She is outshouted by a chorus of Japanese syllables: "O ni! bikkuri shakkuri to!" (one of the many possible translations of which is "So surprised, we hiccup! Bah!") . But the town dwellers are not to be deterred and 'joy reigns everywhere around.'
Act two opens with Yum-Yum being prepared for her wedding. But soon the awful fact is out that under the Mikado's law the widow of a beheaded man must be buried alive. This places Nanki-Poo in a dilemma, if he holds Yum-Yum to this marriage, she dies a hideous death, and if he releases her she must marry Ko-Ko at once. The marriage is off, and Nanki-Poo determines to do away with himself that afternoon unless Ko-Ko will kill him at once. But it turns out that Ko-Ko can't kill anything. To make matters worse, the Mikado and his suite are approaching the town and will arrive in ten minutes. In desperation Ko-Ko arranges to draw up an affidavit of Nanki-Poo's execution.
The Mikado arrives with Katisha who makes much of being his daughter-in-law elect. When Ko-Ko presents his certificate of execution. The Mikado reads it and says, 'My poor fellow, in your anxiety to carry out my wishes you have beheaded the heir to the throne of Japan!' Ko-Ko and Pooh-Bah find Nanki-Poo and beg him to present himself, alive, to his father, thereby absolving them of his death. But Nanki-Poo, now married to Yum-Yum, is afraid of Katisha's wrath. Unless Ko-Ko will agree to marry the old hag himself, he and Yum-Yum will leave on their honeymoon at once. Katisha, meanwhile, is mourning the death of Nanki-Poo, and when Ko-Ko tries to woo her, she is at first reluctant, but he wins the formidable lady with a pack of flattering lies and a sad, lovelorn song.
Katisha adds her powerful pleas to the Mikado for everyone to be pardoned. The Mikado, a bit bewildered by it all nonetheless pronounces that 'Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory!'
The cast for NSU's production is as follows: Nanki- Pooh will be played by both
Rory K. Behrens (Thursday, April 19 and Saturday, April 21) and
Phil Coghlan (Friday, April 20) and his sweet Yum-Yum will be played by
Valerie Tescher (Thursday, April 19 and Saturday, April 21) and
Lexi Grote (Friday, April 20). Koko, the Lord High Executioner, will be taken on by Darcy Brandenburg, Pooh-Bah, the Lord High Everything Else will be performed by NSU music faculty member Raouf Zaidan, Pish-Tush will be Chris Hilldebrand, The Mikado will be Jesse Adams, and Pitti-Sing will be Helene Anderson and her sister Peep-Bo will be Lauren Kessler. Katisha, who would be Nanki-Pooh's bride-to-be if she had her way, will be sung by Leslie Stusiak.
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NSU Director of Theatre, Daniel Yurgaitis, directs and choreographs the operetta and the scenic design will be by NSU Technical Director, Larry Wild with lighting design by Northern student Elias Rostad. Music faculty members Raouf Zaidan and Robert Vodnoy will be Vocal and Music Directors respectively for The Mikado. The costumes are being provided by Harlequin Costumes in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, while the entire production will be stage managed by Samantha Banner, Rose Long and Adam Sahli.
Advance reserved tickets are priced at $11 for adults, $10 for seniors and non-NSU students, and special children's tickets for those 12 and under at $8. Ticket prices will increase $2 at the door. Group rates are available for groups of ten or more. Tickets go on sale Tuesday, April 10th in the NSU Bookstore in the Student Union.
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An inheritance of £400 enabled him to study law. Although called to the bar in 1866, he could not attract enough wealthy clients to succeed financially, and switched to humorous freelance writing, making significant contributions to the magazines Punch and Fun from 1861. In 1869, his various "Bab Ballads" were collected. His first professionally produced play was Uncle Baby, which débuted at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, London, on 31 October 1863, and ran for seven weeks. Other light satirical works for the popular stage include the Christmas pantomime Hush-a-By-Baby (1866) and burlesques Dulcemara, or The Little Duck and The Great Quack (1866) and Pygmalion and Galatea, one of seven new Gilbert plays staged in 1871.
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(from the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society website)
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Sullivan did not forget the stage during this period in his career, providing incidental music for productions of The Merchant of Venice (1871) and The Merry Wives of Windsor (1874) and, also in 1871, collaborating with William Schwenck Gilbert on a Christmas novelty, Thespis, for John Hollingshead's Gaiety Theatre. This did well enough and, with a run of 63 performances, outlasted most of that season's Christmas pantomimes. It was good enough to be chosen for a benefit performance in April 1872, but made no major lasting impression
Sullivan's next invitation to write for the stage came early in 1875 when Richard D'Oyly Carte, a rising young impressario needed a short piece to complete a triple bill at London's Royalty Theatre. W. S. Gilbert had a libretto ready, but no composer. Carte suggested Sullivan. The libretto was Trial by Jury; Sullivan liked it and the rest, as they say, is history. Trial was an immediate success and Carte, realizing the potential of the new partnership, contracted Sullivan and Gilbert to write for him.
Their first two-act piece for Carte, The Sorcerer, appeared in 1877 and new operas followed roughly annually until 1889: H.M.S. Pinafore (1878); The Pirates of Penzance (1879); Patience (1881); Iolanthe (1882); Princess Ida (1884); The Mikado. (1885 - the greatest success of the partnership and still their most successful joint work); Ruddigore (1887); The Yeomen of the Guard (1888); The Gondoliers (1889).
Both Sullivan and Gilbert became wealthy men as a result of their collaborations. D'Oyly Carte became richer than either and built the Savoy Theatre in 1881 to house the pair's works, followed by the Savoy Hotel. He then turned his ambition to the foundation of a school of British "grand" opera and built a new theatre in Cambridge Circus - the Royal English Opera House. Sullivan was invited to compose the inaugural opera and he responded with a setting in three acts of a libretto by Julian Sturgis from Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe opened in January 1891 and was a great success, running for 155 consecutive performances - an unprecedented number for a "serious" opera. Unfortunately, Carte had not provided any other British operas for his school and, after running a French piece and briefly reviving Ivanhoe, was forced to lease, and eventually sell, his theatre.
In the meantime, relations between Sullivan, Gilbert and Carte had deteriorated, culminating in Gilbert suing the other two in the so-called "carpet quarrel". In 1892, Sullivan wrote Haddon Hall, an "English Light Opera" dealing with an actual historical event: the elopement from Haddon, in Derbyshire, of Dorothy Vernon and John Manners. This piece, with a libretto by Sydney Grundy, had a respectable run and kept the Savoy open until the appearance of Utopia Limited (1893) from the reconciled Gilbert and Sullivan. A series of unsuccessful operas then followed: The Chieftain (1894 - an extended, reworked version of The Contrabandista); The Grand Duke (1896 - his last collaboration with Gilbert) and The Beauty Stone (1898 - Arthur Pinero and Joseph Comyns Carr). Then in 1899 Sullivan found a congenial and gifted partner in Basil Hood and their first collaboration, The Rose of Persia, was a considerable success with critics and public alike.
Throughout the period of collaboration with Gilbert, Sullivan continued his work in other fields. In 1880 he was appointed conductor of the Leeds Triennial Musical Festival, which he raised to the highest artistic standards before being deposed after the 1898 Festival by supporters of Charles Villiers Stanford. For Leeds he wrote his two most famous and successful choral works: the "sacred musical drama" The Martyr of Antioch (1880 - adapted as an opera 1898) and the cantata The Golden Legend (1886). The success of the Legend was so great in Sullivan's lifetime that it was second in popularity only to Handel's Messiah and the composer actually took steps to suppress performances to prevent the piece from becoming too hackneyed.
In the summer of 1900 Sullivan was working on a second opera with Hood, but his health, which had never been good, declined rapidly in the autumn and he died on 22 November - the feast day of St. Cecilia, patron saint of music. His own wish to be buried with his beloved parents and brother in Brompton Cemetery was over-ridden by the Queen, who commanded that he be laid to rest in St. Paul's after what amounted to a state funeral. The Hood opera, The Emerald Isle, was completed by Edward German and had its premiere at the Savoy Theatre in April 1901. The Boer War Te Deum duly received its first performance in St. Paul's Cathedral in June 1902.
Drawing by William S. Gilbert
The idea for The Mikado first sprang into W.S. Gilbert's mind when an old Japanese sword, which had been hanging on the wall of his study for years, suddenly fell from its place. Gilbert took this as an omen and determined to leave his own country alone for a while and turn his biting satire instead towards the East. He did not have to look far to research the subject of his new play. He found all the material he wanted in Knightsbridge, a little village of Japanese immigrants within a mile of his own home in South Kensington. Here, he witnessed the strange arts, devices and lifestyles of this proud race. There was an unmistakable feeling for all things Japanese in the air. Thirty years earlier the Queen had sent the Emperor of Japan a warship as a present from the British people. The Japanese were given permission to travel outside of their own country. A display of Japanese arts and crafts at the International Exhibition of 1862 in London inspired a vogue for Japanese design.
When the Japanese sword fell from Gilbert's wall it suggested to him the outline for an entirely new opera, and he wrote to Sullivan to suggest the idea. Never slow to take an opportunity when it offered itself, a male dancer and Geisha girl were hired to coach the company as to the correct oriental manner and makeup.
The Mikado opened at the Savoy on 14 March 1885, when the curtain rose to reveal the town of Titipu, 'like an enormous Japanese fan'. To paraphrase the innumerable critics 'The Mikado' was- 'frank', ' palpable', 'magnificent' and an 'unbounded success'. So much so that one critic was moved to exclaim, 'Sir Arthur Sullivan's and Mr. W.S. Gilbert's new Japanese opera, The Mikado, is subject to one disadvantage, and only one - the difficulty of getting sight of it. Such is the anxiety of the public to witness it, that, though the theatre were twice as large as it is, it would not suffice for the accommodation of all comers.'
The Mikado ran at the Savoy until 19 January 1887.
Sullivan conducted the American premiere of The Mikado (though Gilbert was unable to attend), and made an unusual statement at the close of the performance, including the following:
The talented ladies and gentlemen who form this company have worked with an enthusiasm and good-will impossible to praise too highly and difficult to acknowledge as we would wish. We should have been grieved indeed, had you received your first impressions of our opera from a spurious imitation. . . . , in which the music from having been made up from a pianoforte arrangement must necessarily be mutilated and be a misrepresentation of the meaning of the composer. . . . It may be that some day the legislators of this magnificent country, which I have lately traversed from East to West, may see fit to afford the same protection to a man who employes his brains in literature and art that they do to one who invents a new beer tap or who accidentally gives an extra turn to a screw, doing away with the necessity of boring a hole first. In that day those unfortunate managers and publishers who, having no brains of their own, are content to live by-well, annexing the brain property of others, will be in an embarrassing and pitiable condition, and I for one will promise them my warmest sympathy. But even when that day comes, as I hope and believe it will come, we, the authors and creators, shall still, as we do now, trust mainly to the unerring instinct of the great public for what is good, right, and honest, and we shall still be deeply grateful, as I am to-night to you, ladies and gentlemen, for your cordial appreciation, your quick sympathy, and your generous recognition of our efforts to interest and entertain you.
The New York Times responded as follows:
The effect of Sir Arthur's remarks would have been happier had he confined himself to returning thanks for the public's reception of the work just performed, and to expressing his gratification that the "authorized version" of "The Mikado" had met with the success it merited. The first part of the address . . . was in the right vein, and was as graceful in form as it was becoming in spirit. Its second half was less felicitous, and, its tone, which recalled the cry of the proverbial fowl on its proverbial platform, and its setting, in which the hope was uttered that art works should have the same protection as newly invented "beer taps," together with an assumed indignation at the proceedings of other persons, the indignation finding relief in hasty substitutions of civil words for intended vigorous terms, wrought a rather unpleasant impression. Mr. W.S. Gilbert no doubt harbors the same opinions as his colaborer, but his literary judgment would have counseled him to defer their publication until a more suitable opportunity, and above all, to avoid the inelegant comparisons resorted to by Sir Arthur. Perhaps, however, if Mr. Gilbert were let loose in the orchestra he would play greater havoc than Sir Arthur Sullivan on the rostrum.
For a wonderfully detailed website, chock full of Gilbert and Sullivan information about all their operettas, go to http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/mikado/html/index.html
 Savoy Theatre, 1885 |
The 1938 film version features Martyn Green as Ko-Ko, Jean Colin as Yum-Yum, and Kenny Baker as Nanki-Poo. The 1969 film version features John Reed as Ko-Ko and Valerie Masterton as Yum-Yum. The 1988 film version of the Stratford Ontariio Shakespeare Festival production features Eric Donkin and Gidon Saks (this aired on Canadian television and the actual production toured to Broadway, where its director received a Tony nomination, and later to London, England).
Of the thirteen surviving G&S operettas, The Mikado is the only one that has been widely performed in languages other than English. It is also one of the few musicals that ever led to a diplomatic fracas. When the Crown Prince of Japan made a state visit to Britain in 1907, the work was banned - a maneuver that backfired when the prince complained that he had hoped to see The Mikado during his stay. It remains one of the most frequently produced musicals of all time, and still receives new amateur and professional stagings worldwide.
The full score, the vocal score and the libretto of The Mikado are available through amazon.com.
The text of William S. Gilbert's libretto is online at http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/mikado/libretto.txt
The most complete listing of all recorded versions of The Mikado is available at
http://www.cris.com/~oakapple/gasdisc/mik.htm