The Mikado

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, which was the second longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. Before the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera.

The Mikado remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera, and it is 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.

The Mikado (Millennium)

"'The Mikado" is the thirteenth episode of the second season of the American crime-thriller television series Millennium. It premiered on the Fox network on February 6, 1998. The episode was written by Michael R. Perry and directed Roderick J. Pridy. "The Mikado" featured a guest appearance by Allan Zinyk as Brian Roedecker.

After a group of boys witness a murder via a live webcam feed, Millennium Group profiler Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) realizes that the culprit is an old adversary who has learned to exploit the internet to continue his killing spree while avoiding capture.

Perry was inspired to write the episode after considering the "dark side" of the internet, drawing influence from Jennifer Ringley's JenniCam website. Avatar, the episode's antagonist, was based on real-life murderer the Zodiac Killer. "The Mikado" was seen by over five million households in its initial broadcast, and has received positive reviews from critics.

Plot

A group of friends browse the internet for pornography, finding a live stream of a woman bound to a chair. Behind her a number is painted on the wall; when the feed's web counter reaches the painted number, a masked man appears and cuts the girl's throat. The boys quickly print an image of the feed as proof of what they have seen, just before the website disappears.

The Mikado (1939 film)

The Mikado is a 1939 British musical comedy film based on Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera of the same name. Shot in Technicolor, the film stars Martyn Green as Ko-Ko, Sydney Granville as Pooh-Bah, the American singer Kenny Baker as Nanki-Poo, and Jean Colin as Yum-Yum. Many of the other leads and choristers were or had been members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

Cast

Production

The music was conducted by Geoffrey Toye, a former D'Oyly Carte music director, who was also the producer and was credited with the adaptation, which involved a number of cuts, additions and re-ordered scenes. Victor Schertzinger directed, and William V. Skall received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. Art direction and costume designs were by Marcel Vertès. The orchestra (and the musicians depicted in the film) consisted of 40 members of the London Symphony Orchestra.

William Gilbert

William Gilbert may refer to:

Politicians

Sports

Arts and drama

Others

William Gilbert (politician)

William Gilbert (23 February 1829 – 4 February 1919) was a politician and philanthropist in South Australia. He was a member of the South Australian House of Assembly from 1881 to 1906, representing the electorates of Yatala (1881-1902) and Barossa (1902-1906).

History

Gilbert was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, the only son of a successful millwright and engineer, and was educated at what was later described as the "best private school in the county" but which Gilbert himself criticised as "cramming Greek and Latin rather than teaching first principles", At 19 years of age he took over his father's business, and ran it for ten years. Around 1860 he followed his father into the flour-milling business with a mill at High Wycombe 20 miles from London. He was involved in agitation against the Corn Laws. The mill business was quite successful, though limited by lack of capital but a continual struggle against competitors, suppliers and debtors, and he sold his share to his partner and with his ailing wife emigrated to South Australia (perhaps influenced by the high reputation of Australian wheat), arriving in 1869.

William Gilbert (pastoralist)

William Gilbert (12 October 1850 – 29 March 1923) was a South Australian pastoralist and vigneron.

He was born the only son of Joseph Gilbert (1800–1881) of Pewsey Vale near Lyndoch and his wife Anna née Browne (1812–1873). He was educated at St. Peter's College, and in 1864 enrolled with Cambridge University.

In 1872 he helped Ted Bagot (1848 – 1881) and his foster-brother James Churchill-Smith (1851–1922) drove 1,000 head of cattle from Adelaide to the MacDonnell Ranges where he had acquired three leases centred on Owen Springs Station and Edward Meade Bagot another two, on Emily Gap and Undoolya Stations; this was recognised as one of the great droving feats of Australian pastoral history. He took up management of Owen Springs station in 1873 and in 1875 was managing of all his father's properties.

When his father died he disposed of Owen Springs, the freehold of 32,000 acres at Mount Bryan, and the Oriecowe run on Yorke Peninsula in order to concentrate on stock improvement at Pewsey Vale. It was not long before his wool was fetching record prices. He had considerable success with wines also, though according to one source, he treated winemaking more as a hobby than a business. Having increased output in one year to 17,000 imperial gallons (77,000 l) this would rank as a very serious hobby.

W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 – 29 May 1911) was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for the fourteen comic operas (known as the Savoy operas) produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. The most famous of these include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. These, as well as several of the other Savoy operas, continue to be frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies, repertory companies, schools and community theatre groups. Lines from these works have become part of the English language, such as "short, sharp shock", "What, never? Well, hardly ever!", and "Let the punishment fit the crime".

Gilbert also wrote the Bab Ballads, an extensive collection of light verse accompanied by his own comical drawings. His creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, numerous stories, poems, lyrics and various other comic and serious pieces. His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists, including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. According to The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Gilbert's "lyrical facility and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since".