FULL THE MIKADO (Gilbert & Sullivan) London 2015 Richard Suart, Anthony Gregory, Mary Bevan, Robert Lloyd
Popular Singers in this Opera Recording
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: The Mikado or The Town of Titipu
- Composer: Arthur Sullivan
- Libretto: W. S. Gilbert Libretto Text, Libretto Index
- Venue & Opera Company: Coliseum, London, English National Opera ENO
- Recorded: November 2015
- Type: Staged Opera Live
- Singers: Richard Suart, Anthony Gregory, Mary Bevan, Graeme Danby, Else Yvonne Howard, Robert Lloyd, George Humphreys, Rachael Lloyd, Fiona Canfield
- Conductor: Fergus Macleod
- Orchestra: English National Opera Orchestra
- Chorus: English National Opera Chorus
- Stage Director: Jonathan Miller
- Stage Designer: Stefanos Lazaridis
- Costume Designer: Sue Blane
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Sky
- Date Published: 2015
- Format: Broadcast
- Quality Video: 3 Audio:3
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs
- Video Recording from: YouTube FULL VIDEO
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
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 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. By the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera.
The Mikado is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history. Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese. Gilbert used foreign or fictional locales in several operas, including The Mikado, Princess Ida, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke, to soften the impact of his pointed satire of British institutions. Since the 1990s, some productions of the opera in the United States have drawn criticism for promoting stereotypes of East Asians.