SECTIONV ROYAL OPERETTA THE KINGS' MIKADO DAVIDK. WYATT CORNELL UNIVERSITY At the height of the hot season of 1890, the great King but in the end they were asked to perform The Chulalongkorn of Siam (r. 1868-1910) loaded numerous mem­ Mikado, as they figured it was about Orientals bers of his family and entourage on the royal yacht for a vacation like us Thai and we might understand it trip around the Malay Peninsula. The royal party travelled by better-just as Caophraya Mahinthara had played sea south to the Isthmus ofKra, crossed the isthmus by land, and Phra Aphai[mani] for Europeans. then continued their journey by ship down the west coast all the The place was a single room which we had way to Singapore, stopping in numerous places to tour the new seen them perform in before, when we came [to accomplishments of British colonial rule in Malaya, before Singapore] the first time [in 1872?]. In front were returning home up the east coast. Their longest single stop was rows of ordinary chairs, successive rows rising at Singapore, in the first week of June, and it was in Singapore in tiers and levels. The entire audience, men and that Thai culture made its first acquaintance with that quintes­ women, who came to see [the show] included an sential fixture of Victorian civilization, the comic operas of W. S. additional 200 from the ship. The setting was Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. From that encounter was to quite lovely. come at least three versions of one of the Savoy operettas. For all In the story which they performed, a Crown the impression The Mikado seems to have made at the time, it Prince was being forced to marry an old lady, seems virtually to have been forgotten subsequently, and it is and so fled from his father and fell in love with the purpose of this note to revive the faded memories. Yum-Yum. This Yum-Yum lived with Ko-Ko, Chulalongkorn's party reached Singapore on 30 May, the who was going to take her as his wife; and so fortieth day of a sixty-day trip, and they remained there until9 Nankipu (the Crown Prince) was disconsolate. June. In addition to doing things like riding the trams, visiting When he learned that Ko-Ko had been sen­ a hospital, a bank, government buildings, and the famous tenced to death for smiling at a woman, he Raffles Hotel, on the evening of 2 June the royal party took in an returned; but on returning discovered that evening's entertainment at the Town Hall. The King's diary Ko-Ko had become the Lord High Executioner. records that The Mikado sent a letter ordering that, as no one had been executed in a year, the position [of At 8:45 in the evening, went to see an opera at the Lord High Executioner] would be abolished, Town Hall, called the Opera Buffi of Harry and the town of Titipu would be reduced to the Stanley (Harry Stanley's Opra [sic] Bouffe and status of a village. Ko-Ko consulted with Pantomime company). This Stanley, the propri­ Pooh-Bah, who was Lord High Everything, and etor, once had played in Bangkok a long time Pooh-Bah decided that Ko-Ko would have to be ago, and by now he is quite old and infirm. The executed. Ko-Ko thus was agitated when opera that they played had already finished its Nanki-Poo found him. Nanki-Poo came in with run, but Phraya Anukun [the Thai Consul in Sin­ a hangman's noose. When Ko-Ko asked him gapore] had had them put it on especially for us, why he would hang himself, he replied that it at a cost of 500 dollars to hold the company back was because he would not get Lady Yum-Yum. two days from their scheduled departure for Ko-Kourgedhim to desist, and offered to execute Hong Kong .... Quite a crowd of European ladies him. Nanki-Poo replied that his price for doing and gentlemen came to receive us in front of the so was to be given Yum-Yumashis wife. Because Town Hall, and there was such a crowd that it Ko-Ko had never killed anyone, he would have was a long time before a way through them to practice first for a month, while Nanki-Poo could be cleared for us. [The Company] had would have Yum-Yum as his wife. Ko-Ko con­ been playing various other plays in repertory, sented. Lady Katisha, the woman who formerly 132 DAVID K. WYATT loved Nanki-Poo, discovered Nanki-Poo, and reproachfully re-wrote it as a real sermon. This went to tell the Mikado. The Mikado came to is how the "Sermon Concerning the Mikathura Titipu. Ko-Ko assumed that he had come be­ (Mikado)fromtheSacredText'HarisatanliObara cause of the lack of executions, and came to learn (Harry Stanley Opera)"' came to be. that, according to the law, if a husband must be I have heard that when His Majesty had executed, his wife must be buried also. Nanki­ written the "Sermon ConcerningtheMikathura" Poo could not receive Lady Yum-Yum because he presented it to the Royal Supreme Patriarch he feared that his beloved must die if he himself Prince Vajirafianavarorasa ... to read. The were executed; and Ko-Ko feared that if he did Prince-Patriarch [read it] and then observed to not execute someone else, he would have to kill His Majesty that, "In the opinion of a [Buddhist] himself, and then his beloved Yum-Yum would monk, I think that monastery-people when writ­ die as well. So he concocted a scheme with inginasecularfashionstillcomeoutwiththestyle Pooh-Bah that Pooh-Bah would swear that the of the monastery, no matter how they write; and execution had occurred, while Nanki-Poo and laymen writing in the style of the monastery, no Yum-Yum would be allowed to escape. The matter how they disguise their style, still em­ Mikado believed them, but said he had come in ploy phraseology strange to the monastery." search of his son, whom he believed had taken His Majesty King Chulalongkornheard this and the name ofNanki-Poo. Believing the story that laughed! (Rajanubhab 1922, pp. b-d). Nanki-Poo had been executed, he decided that Ko-Ko would be killed, and the witness The best way of explaining the style of this first Thai [Pooh-Bah] boiled in oil. But first he would have Mikado might be to ask readers to imagine the story of The lunch. In the interim, Ko-Ko called in Nanki­ Mikado told in the style of the King James Version of the Old Poo and asked him if he were the Crown Prince. Testament. The Thai version is like ancient old tales so often He asked him to plead with his father, but met with in tellings of the stories of the previous existences of Nanki-Poo would not consent to do so, because the Buddha, the Jiitaka tales, and with which all educated Thai he feared that he would have to marry Lady of Chulalongkorn's generation would have been familiar. Katisha. If Ko-Ko would woo Katisha and get The text begins, like so many religious texts, with a long her to agree to be his wife, then Nanki-Poo verse in the Pali language, the language of Theravada Buddhist would go [to his father]. Ko-Ko wooed Katisha scriptures: as agreed. The Mikado returned, and Katisha begged for the pardon of Ko-Ko. The son and Atite kira jipanadipesu mikaduronama rajatokiyenagare daughter-in-law paid homage as the play con­ rajjam karapesi putto panassa ekiinavisativasso abhiriipo cluded. pasadiko bayatto medhavi ahositi. The music was pretty, and not excessive like the Italian opera in Calcutta. It was very It then continues on in Thai, but with Pali and fake-Pali phrases comical. The orchestra used 12 players, both regularly inserted and explained: men and women. They began with the [Thai] Royal Anthem, and when it was concluded they Now I will explicate the fabulous tale which as usual played "God Save the Queen." ... It appears in the Sacred TextHarisatanli Obara.ltruns finished at 11.45 (Chulalongkorn 1932,279-281 ). as follows. Ante, "Once upon a time," there was a great monarch whose name was Mikaduraraja, Many of the royal party attending the operetta that evening who enjoyed the royal domains ofTokiyanagara, knew English well, and some purchased copies of the printed in all its continental extent. He had one royal son, libretto, which they brought home with them. The following ekunavisativasso, whose royal age numbered year, 1891, when the King and his family took their holidays on nineteen rainy seasons, whose beauty was so Si Chang Island in the Gulf of Siam, they brought along the two heavenly as to give pleasure to all who beheld it, men who were the Thai and English tutors of the royal children, and who was exceedingly talented and clever Phraya Itsaraphansophon (M. R. W. Nu Itsarangkun na (Chulalongkorn 1922, 1) Ayudhya) and Robert Morant; and Morant asked his pupils to translate The Mikado libretto into Thai. Phraya ltsaraphan then The tale is told entirely in prose, with none of the music or revised the Thai version. As Prince Damrong later explained, the dramatic quality that makes The Mikado so memorable in English. There is no dialogue, and the piece was intended to be His Majesty King Chulalongkorn looked at the read or recited, not to be performed. It amounts to a detailed translation ... and observed, "The English origi­ synopsis of and elaboration upon Gilbert's play.