The Mikado

The Mikado, otherwise known as “The Town of Titipu”, is the ninth comic opera by the duo W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.

The plot takes place in Japan, disguising British political institutions as Japanese to satirise. The story tells the comedic tale of Nanki-Poo, son of the Mikado of Japan, who fled his father’s imperial court to escape marriage with Katisha, an elderly lady. Disguised as a traveling musician, he met and fell in love with Yum-Yum, the young ward of Ko-Ko, a cheap tailor in the town of Titipu.

‘The Mikado’ is the most frequently performed Savoy Opera, being in constant production around the world since its conception. Likewise The Mikado has also been recorded more often then any other opera by Gilbert and Sullivan.

It has received some criticism for its baby-talk character names and words instead of authentic Japanese names, and for its simplistic and stereotyped sets and costumes. Likewise the original script has been amended to remove racial slurs that had not widely been considered offensive at the time it was written.

Gilbert dismissed criticism claiming the play insulted the Emperor and misrepresented Japan by stating “The Mikado of the opera was an imaginary monarch of a remote period and cannot by any exercise of ingenuity be taken to be a slap on an existing institution” and “[The Mikado] was never a story about Japan but about the failings of the British government”