The Mikado

I love Gilbert and Sullivan, but I don't consider myself a purist really and bash anything that moves away from its original source. I always try to judge something by their own merits, and I will aim to do so now.

The Mikado is not my favourite of G&S operettas, I am more a Pirates of Penzance and HMS Pinafore person myself, but I love the oriental setting, the characters(gotta love Nanki-Poo), the witty dialogue and the sparkling music.

Against all this I only had mixed feelings on this 1987 Mikado. Musically I had no problem whatsoever with it, the music is still as brilliant as ever, the singing and enunciation is good with Heather Begg and Gregory Yurisich coming off best and the orchestra and conducting are stylish.

Production-values-wise The Mikado is decent. Some mayn't like the mix of oriental and Victorian clothes all at once, I personally didn't mind it, while the set design is like a lovely Japanese fantasy land. The video directing is good and while grainy at times, at least on the video I saw, the picture quality was decent.

My main problems with this Mikado were the sound and staging. The sound is awful, very low in volume making some of the dialogue and the singing when the singers are at the back of the stage rather inaudible, Anne Marie MacDonald suffers from this the most. If I were to sum the staging in one word, it would be distracting. The more choreographic parts of the staging comes across as messy, while all the business with the performers popping out of jugs and cabinets, schoolgirls arriving on trains and the three sisters squabbling got too much after a while.

The dialogue is witty and delightful when done right. The sound however spoils it, and I found some of the singers especially Graeme Ewer's Ko-Ko overly-milking it in their acting. Also some of the best bits of dialogue are thrown away, and what remains just doesn't have the impact.

Performances were mixed, the singing was good in general, the acting ranged from effective to overdone. I'll start with who I was impressed with. There were two performances I loved. One was Heather Begg. Of the cast, she is one of the more experienced singers and a delight in everything she appears. Here is no exception, her Katisha is a very touching and nasty performance. The other is Gregory Yurisich, whose Pooh-Bah is appropriately sly.

Others were mostly good, but could've been even more. Anne Marie MacDonald is a beautiful and well-sung Yum Yum, and she is very charming. The sound however eluded her, when she is at the back of the stage I had to crane my ears to hear her properly. Also Robert Eddie has a limpid voice and is a majestic presence as the Mikado. The problem was I remembered Begg and I remembered Yurisich, after watching Eddie wasn't as memorable.

Then there are some I wasn't crazy about at all. The worst for me was Graeme Ewer, of all the Ko-Kos I've seen thus far, Ewer's is the only one that has fallen flat for me. I felt his whole performance relied too much on the mugging and over-milking and not enough heart and subtlety. If there were any moments of his performance I did like it was his rendition of the Titwillow song, this was touching. Usually I find Nanki-Poo likable and hilarious, as much as I did find Peter Cousen very handsome, the production did make Nanki-Poo too much of a smarmy brat for my tastes.

Overall, very mixed feelings on this Mikado. 5/10 Bethany Cox

A quite good attempt to bring Gilbert and Sullivan up-to-date without doing too much violence to the original. The music, as I recall, seems more-or-less unchanged. The words though have been modernized in many spots as is customary, particularly in the songs of Ko-Ko, Pooh-Bah and the Mikado. Several of these references have to be unintelligible to non-Australians and even Australians below a certain age.

Gilbert and Sullivan's standard older woman and comic villain Katisha (Heather Begg) dragged some of the time but, since this is from a live performance, this may be forgiven. And Anne Maree McDonald was satisfactory as Yum-Yum. Some of her singing is comparatively inaudible, maybe because of what the other reviewer mentions: that the audio is not picked up well when an actor-singer is out of range.

Peter Cousens (Nanki-Poo) was not entirely convincing as a Gilbert and Sullivan juvenile and Graeme Ewer (Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner) perhaps reminded me too much of the American comic character actor Marvin Kaplan, But they were otherwise both quite good as were the other men. There are various mistakes as is to be expected in a live performance.

Clever use is made of the imitation Japanese vases in which characters appear, disappear and play many scenes in. I'm not sure I particularly like the costumes for the men which look like ornate bathrobes. And Cousens looks like he is wearing eye mascara rather than Japanese eye makeup.

The comedy was over-the-top as usual but I think along the right lines.

The DVD had no extra features that I could see. If there were subtitles, I couldn't find them and I think subtitles were often needed.

Gilbert wrote about very English characters but set in exotic Japan. This production delightfully mixes a fantasy Japanese setting with English anachronisms. Lively choreography and "hammy" acting, mixed with the humour of the original, keep it entertaining for young and old.

This is a recording of a live performance from the Sydney Opera House by the Australian Opera. Although the production is modern, the music is completely faithful to Sullivan's tuneful original score. The sound is very good, although the singers can sound a bit distant when they are singing from the back of the stage - no radio mikes here! In case there is the odd person not completely au fait with the Australian political scene in the 1980's, the prime minister was Bob Hawke, the opposition leader was Andrew Peacock, and the opposition leader "in the wings" was the premier of Queensland, Joh "bananas" Bjelke-Petersen - this should explain some of the props.

This was re-released on DVD by Opus Arte in 2006 as a global (region free NTSC) release. (Virtually all PAL TV / DVD combinations can play NTSC DVDs, but the reverse is not true.)