According to the Victoria Gilbert and Sullivan Society (VGSS) music director Tom Mitchell, classic opera lovers and newcomers alike can enjoy the VGSS production of The Mikado: Reimagined, a take on Arthur Sullivan’s original 1885 opera The Mikado.
“Sullivan brought such wonderful music for all the operas, and in The Mikado, there is certainly a wealth of wonderful, delightful tunes,” says Mitchell.
The VGSS production of The Mikado is the first to incorporate an added prologue, created by the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Society. While The Mikado is a classic, satirical comedy, it has come under scrutiny for its treatment and presentation of Japanese culture. The prologue is used to set the scene for the opera, and works to diminish what previously seemed like racist tones within it.
“The New York Gilbert and Sullivan players were originally going to mount this production in 2016,” says Mitchell. “There was a great deal of controversy in the press, such that they cancelled the production and went into what I believe was just more than one year of consultation with the Japanese Cultural Association in New York, and came up with this approach to it that would be acceptable without being insensitive to Japanese culture.”
The prologue brings in some much-needed context without taking away from the original wit and comedy present in Gilbert and Sullivan’s works. Mitchell says that it sets the scene up in a way that allows for a more Victorian take—and less of an imitation of Japanese culture.
“It certainly does the job of setting up the premise of the show,” says Mitchell. “It basically sets the scene for the opera to take place in what the time was—the current time in London, England, in the 1880s. So it’s set in Victorian London with hints of Japanese to it. But it’s basically English people enacting out what’s going through Gilbert’s mind as he formulates the Mikado in his own mind.”
While the prologue creates a framework for the opera, the rest of The Mikado remains much the same, with no changes or additions to the classic music. This is a plus for Mitchell, who considers the music a huge part of what makes The Mikado so enduring.
“When I first heard that we were doing this version, my first concern was whether they had changed the music, and I was very relieved to hear none of the music had changed,” he says. “There’s certainly an element of a couple of places, because one of the principal characters, of course, is Mikado himself, the emperor. And so, when he’s coming in, there is very much a Japanese element to the tunes. And it is actually a true Japanese marching song that Sullivan chose to use.”
Still, Mitchell hopes that there will be younger people in the audience to enjoy the addition to the opera, and that longtime Gilbert and Sullivan fans can appreciate what the prologue does for the opera without changing its essence.
“Hopefully, we will have a lot of people in the audience that are still younger people,” says Mitchell, “for future generations who either don’t know The Mikado, or don’t know very much about it, and therefore they’ll see it for what it is, as opposed to comparing it to the way we’ve always seen The Mikado.”
The Mikado: Reimagined
Various times, Friday, November 9 to Sunday, November 11
$30 student tickets, Mary Winspear Centre
gilbertandsullivanvictoria.ca