Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. The Mikado: Act One: Overture
2. The Mikado: Act One: If You Want To Know Who We Are
3. The Mikado: Act One: A Wand'ring Minstrel I
4. The Mikado: Act One: Our Great Mikado, Virtuous Man
5. The Mikado: Act One: Young Man, Despair, Likewise Go To
6. The Mikado: Act One: And Have I Journey'd For A Month
7. The Mikado: Act One: Behold The Lord High Executioner
8. The Mikado: Act One: As Some Day It May Happen
9. The Mikado: Act One: Comes A Train Of Little Ladies
10. The Mikado: Act One: Three Little Maids From School
11. The Mikado: Act One: So Please You, Sir, We Much Regret
12. The Mikado: Act One: Were You Not To Ko-Ko Plighted
13. The Mikado: Act One: I Am So Proud
14. The Mikado: Act One: Finale Act One

Disc 2:

1. The Mikado: Act Two: Braid The Raven Hair
2. The Mikado: Act Two: The Sun, Whose Rays Are All Ablaze
3. The Mikado: Act Two: Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day
4. The Mikado: Act Two: Here's A How-De-Do! If I Marry You
5. The Mikado: Act Two: Mi-Ya-Sa-Ma, Mi-Ya-Sa-Ma
6. The Mikado: Act Two: A More Humane Mikado Never Did In Japan Exist
7. The Mikado: Act Two: The Criminal Cried As He Dropped Him Down
8. The Mikado: Act Two: See How The Fates Their Gifts Allot
9. The Mikado: Act Two: The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring
10. The Mikado: Act Two: Alone, And Yet Alive
11. The Mikado: Act Two: On A Tree By A River
12. The Mikado: Act Two: There Is Beauty In The Bellow Of The Blast
13. The Mikado: Act Two: Finale Act Two

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #163153 in Music
• Released on: 1993-10-19
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 85 minutes

Customer Reviews

Superb G & S
After I heard the 1936 recording of The Mikado, with Martyn Green singing the part of Nanki-Poo, I was a sucker for the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan, thereafter.

This recording on the TER label, isn't quite as good - in my view, nothing could be - but it runs the 1936 version a very close second. Bonaventura Bottone is a very good successor to Martyn Green, Eric Roberts is a cracking Ko-Ko and Susan Gorton is a suitably threatening Katisha.

The D'Oyly Carte Opera Chorus and Orchestra is on fine form, ably and skilfully conducted by John Pryce Jones in this, arguably the finest (and certainly the most colourful) of the G & S operettas.

Tour de force
Mr Kirby is quite right in his opinion of the 1936 Mikado recording and it probably never has been bettered; equalled by DECCA in 1957, but not bettered. However, I think there is some confusion as Martyn Green, who is excellent on the former recording, actually sings Ko-Ko, it is Derek Oldham who plays Nanki-Poo.

This current recording actually scores over the 1936 in that the orchestral parts are transcribed directly from Sullivan's autographed manuscript, so for the first time we hear the opera as Sullivan intended it, without all the changes and additions made by various D'Oyly Carte musical directors (including Malcolm Sargent) over the previous 100 years. This becomes immediately obvious in the overture where the two bar flute solo between the two 'verses' of 'The sun whose rays' is missing - it is in the manuscript but is a very obvious late addition by someone else as the hand is not that of Sullivan, or of Hamilton Clarke, Sullivan's assistant and arranger of the overture under the composer's instruction. Many of Gilbert's original lyrics are also reinstated ('Little List' a notable exception), and the full 2 verse version of 'Were I not to Ko-Ko plighted' is present. For some reason the second verse of Katisha's 'Heart's do not break' is omitted - it was reinstated on stage but I can't remember if it was this production or a later one.

All in all however, unless you can track down the 1957 recording (with definitive performances from Donald Adams (MIKADO), Peter Pratt (KO-KO, Kenneth Sandford (POOH-BAH) and Ann Drummond-Grant (KATISHA) on the private Sounds on CD label, this is THE MIKADO to have.