THE MIKADO Gilbert & Sullivan
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THE MIKADO Gilbert & Sullivan FESTIVAL THEATRE STATE OPERA SOUTH AUSTRALIA THE MIKADO A Comedic Opera in two acts Gilbert & Sullivan by Gilbert & Sullivan Orchestration by Eric Wetherell A Comedic Opera in two acts Orchestration by Eric Wetherell CREATIVES CAST Conductor - Simon Kenway Mikado - Pelham Andrews Director - Stuart Maunder Nanki Poo- Dominic J. Walsh Design - Simone Romaniuk Ko-Ko - Byron Coll Lighting Designer - Donn Byrnes Pooh-Bah - Andrew Collis Choreography - Siobhan Ginty Pish-Tush - Nicholas Cannon Associate Choreographer - Penny Martin Yum-Yum - Amelia Berry Repetiteur - Andrew George Pitti-Sing - Bethany Hill Peep-Bo - Charlotte Kelso Katisha - Elizabeth Campbell 9-23 NOVEMBER ADELAIDE FESTIVAL THEATRE STATE OPERA CHORUS The Mikado is an original ADELAIDE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA production by Opera Queensland. Director’s Note There is no theatrical phenomenon in the Antipodes The G&S operetta’s durability is extraordinary but with the staying power of Gilbert and Sullivan. not unexplainable. After all, Gilbert’s dramatic situations are still funny, and Sullivan’s music Our love affair with G&S (and let’s face it, how succeeds in providing a kind of romantic foil to many creators are instantly recognised by their Gilbert’s pervasive drollery and cynicism. This kind initials alone?) is almost as enduring as the works of friction was very much at the heart of Gilbert themselves. In the 1870s, when policing copyright and Sullivan’s creative relationship and the gentle was much trickier than it is now, two rival “pirate” satire alternating with genuine heartfelt emotion is productions of H.M.S. Pinafore were playing across a combination that never ages – indeed, perhaps it’s the street from one another in Melbourne. Smelling something we need now more than ever. a great business opportunity J. C. Williamson, an American actor manager then working in Australia For generations of us, the first Gilbert and Sullivan in travelled to London to secure the copyright to the theatre is a crucial formative experience. I have all future G&S productions in Australia and New lost count of the number of people who’ve told me Zealand. “my aunt took me to see Pinafore or Pirates when I was eight”…and how that sparked a lifelong love From that point on, this part of the world became of the G&S canon, but also hooked them into the one of D’Oyly Carte’s most prolific export markets. wonderful world of theatre as a whole. The first “official” production of The Mikado was playing in Australia only six months after the London So here’s to reviving a great tradition, and giving premiere. The J.C. Williamson Company went on to a whole new generation of Australians their own tour the operas consistently throughout Australia, anecdotes about ‘my first G&S’. New Zealand and South Africa right up until the 1960s. STUART MAUNDER At the end of 1961, the copyright on the Gilbert and Director Sullivan operas expired, and companies all over the world relished the prospect of new productions. Since then, there have been countless ‘modern’ productions, ‘hot’ Mikados, ‘black’ Mikados, ‘jazz’ Mikados, an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart sings excerpts of Pinafore to calm a murderous Sideshow Bob and even an episode of The Muppet Show in which a seven-foot-tall talking carrot sang selections from “The Carrots of Penzance”. Each new incarnation, however absurd the premise, seems only to confirm the inherent strengths in the original material, in all its raucous energy and wit. Conductor’s Note Like many Australians, as Stuart Maunder points indefinable quality of “catchiness” and memorability. out in his introduction, I was first immersed into This is undiluted genius. It reveals an innate the topsy-turvy world of Gilbert and Sullivan during understanding of how we humans hear and think. my high school years at an all male boarding school. G&S operetti often contain characters who are Following a successful student production of The themselves poets or musicians. Patience’s Lady Pyjama Game, a joint endeavour was decided upon Jane, with her frustrated (frustrating?) string with the local girls boarding school. With the guiding ambitions and her fellow cast mate the fleshy poet zeal of an inspirational and theatrical nun (who Reginald Bunthorne, the two singing gondelieri in was the director) we embarked upon presenting our The Gondoliers and of course the wandering minstrel version of H.M.S. Pinafore. As I was one of the few of The Mikado’s Nanki-Poo (disguised as a second pianists enrolled at school, it fell to me to teach and trombone) are all affectionate embodiments with prepare the cast for their various roles and ensembles more than a hint of accurate caricature. Sullivan’s and to play in the “orchestra” for the performances. orchestral forces, limited in number due to financial Immediately, I was struck by both the cleverness pressures from managements, provide, within of the lyrics and the absurdity of the situations the framework of a early 19th century “classical” contained within as well as by the completely orchestra (double wind, double brass, percussion, apposite, illuminating and downright brilliant nature strings) a sympathetic, brightly coloured, and when of the music. called upon, occasionally thrilling accompanying I was hooked. Still am. texture. Sullivan was sensitive, practical and well taught and has a real orchestral deftness of touch. Arthur Sullivan felt that his musical calling was towards “high art” and “serious opera”. He was Within these scores there is little real local colour or trained at London’s Royal Academy of Music and any traditional musical elements that would today be later at the Leipzig Conservatoire (the clear influence considered examples of cultural appropriation. The of Rossini, and in particular, Mendelssohn upon his chief concerns of the worlds within G&S scores are writing can be traced to this experience). Throughout sharply focused portrayals of British society which his life he continued to write oratorios and “serious” reflect more generally, human nature itself indeed the operas that are arguably turgid in nature. It is often cosmology of G&S encompases the full expression of remarked that Sullivan felt that it was beneath his human foilbles, vanities and frailties. The somehow talents, that he was “slumming” it with his “syllabic relatable yet ridiculous comic situations, incredibly settings” for W.S. Gilbert. Having worked on his tortured yet brilliant linguistic feats as well as the opera Ivanhoe and his oratorio The Light of the moments of genuine, illuminating and moving pathos World, I would argue, and it’s clear that the world are the reason these pieces remain eternally popular. agrees, that the restraints involved in setting these How fortuitous for us all that this felicitous yet brilliant libretti, much like the similar restrictions unlikely partnership between two disparate geniuses contained in haiku or sonnet forms, squeezed the occurred. Their eternal achievement is a boon for all utmost brilliance and most representative musical ages. solutions from him. Sullivan is unsurpassed in his ability to musically represent and capture a Thank you Sister Patricia. character’s personality within the most economical of means (you hear four notes of anything Pooh-Bah sings and you recognise his type immediately). The SIMON KENWAY fresh and eternally tuneful melodies that Sullivan Conductor conjures for his characters are as well, always vocally satisfying. They have that unteachable and Synopsis A year before the curtain goes up, Nanki- is beheaded. Ko-Ko will then be free to marry the Poo, son of the Mikado of Japan, flees the widowed Yum-Yum. imperial court to escape marriage with All rejoice at this resolution, but the festivities are Katisha, an elderly lady. Disguised as an rudely interrupted by the arrival of Katisha. Furious itinerant musician, he meets and falls in at Nanki-Poo’s rejection, she attempts to reveal his love with Yum-Yum, the young ward of Ko- true identity. She is silenced by the crowd, but vows Ko, a cheap tailor in the town of Titipu. revenge. Yum-Yum, however, is already betrothed to her guardian and Nanki-Poo leaves Titipu in ACT TWO despair. Yum-Yum is happily preparing for her wedding until she is informed by Ko-Ko that, under the Mikado’s ACT ONE law, the widow of a beheaded man must be buried alive. To spare Yum-Yum this grim fate, Nanki-Poo The action takes place in the town of Titipu. again decides to kill himself, leaving Ko-Ko once A group of Japanese nobles are going about their more without the requisite head to lop off. At the business. Nanki-Poo, still masquerading as a news of the Mikado’s imminent arrival Ko-Ko sends musician, having heard the news that Ko-Ko has been the young things off to be married while he and Pooh- condemned to death for flirting, has hurried back Bah draw up an affidavit that Nanki-Poo’s execution to Titipu to try to claim Yum-Yum. Unfortunately, has taken place. he learns from Pish-Tush that, far from being dead, Ko-Ko has been reprieved at the last moment and The Mikado arrives with Katisha and is very pleased appointed Lord High Executioner. There is worse to to hear that an execution has taken place until he come as Pooh-Bah, the holder of every other major learns that the victim unfortunately was his own office of the state, informs Nanki-Poo that Yum-Yum son. As punishment, Ko-Ko and his accomplices are and Ko-Ko are to be married that afternoon. scheduled to die after luncheon. Their only hope is Ko-Ko appears, and recounts the story of how he to admit the falsehood of the affidavit and produce became the Lord High Executioner.