The Mikado

Synopsis

A comic operetta with a Japanese theme. Songs such as 'Three Little Maids from School', 'A Wandering Minstrel', 'A Most Humane Mikado' etc. One of Gilbert and Sullivan's most popular works. In the town of Titipu, local government has fallen into the hands of two dubious characters: Ko-Ko, in charge of public executions; and Pooh-Bah, who has a finger in every pie. A young man arrives who, unknown to most, is Nanki-Poo, son of the Mikado. Fleeing an arranged marriage to the elderly Katisha, he falls for the beautiful Yum-Yum, Ko-Ko's fiancée. When the Mikado arrives, thirsty for executions, Ko-Ko thinks he has the perfect plan...until Katisha turns up, bent on revenge.

Our Review:

27 February 2011

Here’s a how-de-do! Twenty-five years on, Jonathan Miller’s prime slice of Gilbert and Sullivan still scrubs up a treat. It’s fresh, full of style and replete with inventive, audience-grabbing originality – the very qualities that English National Opera’s artistic director John Berry claims he’s injecting into the company’s repertoire with his ‘first-time director’ policy. Pish-tush, say I. Let’s take bets on the next revival: Lucrezia Borgia’s first or The Mikado’s umpeenth?

To matters at hand. Peter Robinson sets a dizzy tempo for the overture and sustains its energy throughout the evening, yet never at the expense of tonal colour and variety. The orchestra clearly relishes its night off from Wagner and Donizetti. The curtain then rises on the late Stefanos Lazaridis’ celebrated cream-and-white hotel lounge and on one of the strongest casts this production has seen; from Alfie Boe’s...

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