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by Arthur Sullivan, directed by Guillermo Silva-Marin

Toronto Operetta Theatre, Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto

October 24-26, 2025

Chorus: “If you want to know who we are / We are men of Burlington”

Those attending the Toronto Operetta Theatre’s latest production of The Mikado (1885) without having read the promotional materials will be in for a bit of a surprise. Unlike the TOT’s productions in 2003 and 2008, the action is not set in the town of Titipu in a fanciful Japan of W.S. Gilbert’s imagination but in Burlington, Ontario. Does relocating the action have a major impact on the story? Interestingly, it does not. The reason for is that everyone, including Gilbert, knew that the comic opera was not a satire of Japan but rather a satire of bureaucracy and the inequities of the inequities of the law that just happened to be set in Japan, a country open to the West only since 1854 and then in vogue. With one of Gilbert’s best libretti and some of Sullivan’s best music so well preformed, few will miss the paper-thin japonaiserie of the original but may wonder if the new relocation of the action has any point.

The idea of de-Japanizing The Mikado is not new. One of the most revolutionary productions of the operetta is one Jonathan Miller created for the English National Opera (ENO) in 1986. Without changing the plot, music or character names, Miller re-located the action to the lobby of a grand seaside hotel in Bournemouth in the 1930s. The décor is entirely in black, white and grey, thus relating the story to those of farcical films of the 1920s. The production has been so successful that by 2019 it had been revived 15 times.

The TOT’s impetus for de-Japanizing The Mikado probably comes from the controversy surrounding announced traditional revivals of the work in Seattle in 2014 and in New York in 2015. The concern then at the height of political correctness was the use of “yellowface”, not literally, but in having non-Japanese performers play Japanese characters wearing Japanese garb on stage. While the Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society went ahead with its traditional production, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP) cancelled their production and produced a new one the next year. The new production, created with input of the Asian-American theatre community, begins with a prologue in which Gilbert, Sullivan and Doyly-Carte are examining Japanese artifacts whereupon Gilbert is struck on the head with a falling samurai sword. The rest of the show is played as Gilbert’s dream of events in Japan with characters in British Victorian dress against a Japanese-style background.

There is a certain irony to all of this since in 2001 the town of Chichibu, Japan, which takes pride in being referenced as Gilbert’s Titipu, staged the first mainstream production of The Mikado in Japanese. It proved a huge success in Japan and later travelled to the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in the Uk in 2006. The most recent performance of The Mikado in Japan was in 2017 by Biwako Hall Vocal Ensemble of Shiga that was later invited to play at the New National Theatre in Tokyo. Strangely enough, as Josephine Lee states in her book-length study of The Mikado, The Japan of Pure Invention (2010), what Japanese audiences like about The Mikado is the way it conjures up Meiji-era Japan before Japan became so fully modernized.

Nevertheless, TOT Artistic Director Guillermo Silva-Marin has decided not merely to de-Japanize The Mikado but to Canadianize it as well. In this he has gone farther than necessary. Unlike the ENO or NYGASP versions, the TOT has expunged every reference to Japan from the music and libretto. Except for the name Yum-Yum, all the characters have been renamed. This is bit strange since Gilbert’s character names are made of English references and not at all Japanese. Yum-Yum, Pish Tish and Pooh Bah are all composed of English exclamations, which should be a signal that the real setting of the operetta is an imaginary, not a real, Japan. The are names are not really improvements. Is “Bo-Bo” better than “Ko-Ko” or “Nanki Blue” better than “Nanki-Poo”? “Katisha” seems like a real name whereas the new “Katty Kat” does not. Worst of all is changing “Pooh Bah” to “Lord Blimp” because the character name “Pooh Bah” has become common epithet meaning a “pompous official”, which is exactly what the character is.

The TOT has removed the two passages of Japanese sung in the libretto – “O ni! bikkuri shakkuri to!” used to drown out Katisha when tries to reveal Nanki-Poo’s identity In Act 1 and “Miya sama, miya sama” used to welcome the Mikado and Katisha in Act 2. The first is a mix of Japanese words that has been translated into English, though to what exactly I couldn’t understand. The second is an actual Japanese war song from the 19th century, which is also quoted in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (1904). This has been totally excised and, with it, the musical accompaniment that is a theme in the overture. That means that the overture you hear at the TOT is a truncated version of the original overture by Sullivan so that the “Miya sama” melody does appear at either the beginning or end. In my view, totally de-Japanizing the music is going too far.

At least, the TOT doesn’t try to alter the story of Gilbert’s libretto, although that means that certain oddities arise in when the story is re-set in Canada. We can see that Prime Minister might be the equivalent of Mikado, but when has Canada had a position of Lord High Executioner, which is still given as Bo-Bo’s title? In Canada the death penalty ended in practice in 1963 and in law for civilian crimes in 1976. Plus, the only legal method of execution in Canada was always hanging, never beheading by “snickersnee” as the TOT’s version still has it, much less being buried alive or being boiled in oil or snuffed out with molten lead as the Prime Minister would like. The libretto’s preoccupation with executions and the gruesome ways of preforming them just doesn’t fit with the deliberately bland Canadian setting. Thus, TOT has traded the original setting which is fauxJapanese for a setting which is faux Canadian.

Despite all this, the TOT production is still quite enjoyable. Madeline Cooper is an excellent Yum-Yum. Her acting is superior to most of those on stage and her mezzo-soprano is full and strong. She gives a gorgeous account of “The sun whose rays are all ablaze" while mining all the humour of Yum-Yum’s not thinking herself at all vain. As Nanki Blue, Marcus Tranquilli displays a tenor with a fine Irish tone, but on this outing with TOT his sound is not as rounded or powerful. His finest moment is the comic kissing duet with Cooper, “Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted”.

Karen Bojti is an impressive Katty Kat both in acting and singing and completely dominates the stage whenever she appears. Though Katty Kat is set up as frightening figure, Gilbert and Sullivan also allow the character to reveal her inner sadness beneath all the angry posturing. Bojti uses these moments in “The hour of gladness” and “Alone, and yet alive” not only to display the power and nuance of her voice but also to reveal Katty Kat as not quite the monster we first take her be. This is important in preparing us for her sympathy with the little tom-tit later on.

Comic baritone Gregory Finney is perfectly at home on stage as Bo-Bo. He delivers all his songs with aplomb, especially “As some day it may happen” with an updated list that can hardly catalogue all the people in high places today who would not be missed. His best moment is his rendition of “On a tree by a river” which is one of the funniest I have ever heard. His imitation of the little tom-tit gurgling as he drowns and Bojti’s increasingly emotional Katty Kat make this the show’s comic high point.

Stuart Graham’s Prime Minister pales in comparison with Bojti’s Katty Kat. His account of “A more humane Mikado” communicates none of the gleeful malice it should and while he does produce a loud laugh, he can’t seem to make it veer from mere hilarity to evil mockery. As Lord Blimp, Handaya Rusli uses a fine, resonant tone in singing but is not as fluid in speaking the large swaths of dialogue he is given. As a stolid Sir Dicky (i.e., Pish Tush), Joseph Ernst adds his attractive baritone to many ensembles, most notably to “I am so proud” (the song about the “short sharp shock”). It is a pity that the TOT has cut the madrigal “Brightly dawns our wedding day” from Act 2 since it would have provided Ernst with another fine moment to shine.

Conductor Narmina Afandiyeva draws committed playing from the 9-member TOT Orchestra, who, as under the best conductors, sound like an established salon orchestra. The TOT Chorus is especially enjoyable, blending wonderfully in its many contributions during the operetta. Sullivan always has excellent sequences for male chorus or female chorus, but here when the mixed chorus confronts Katty Kat or celebrates at the end it really becomes one of the characters.

With so much delightful singing it is too bad that the operetta’s plot now has so little to do with its new setting. Either the setting should have nothing to do with the story as in the ENO version, or non-Japanese costumes should deliberately contrast with a Japanese backdrop and set as in the NYGASP version. Both ban yellowface, but at least the ENO and NYGASP versions, unlike the current TOT version, change neither the music, libretto nor characters’ names.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Gregory Finney as Bo-Bo and Karen Bojti as Katty Kat, © 2025 Gary Beechey; poster for The Mikado as staged by the Biwako Hall Vocal Ensemble of Shiga, Japan, in 2017; Madeline Cooper as Yum-Yum, Marcus Tranquilli as Nanki Blue and Stuart Graham as the Prime Minister, © 2025 Gary Beechey.

For tickets visit: www.torontooperetta.com.