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OPERA REVIEW
A Mikado That Lights Up
July 27, 2001
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By Heather Hadlock
History records that the opening night of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado went into overtime due to the clamor for encores. Some numbers were recalled as many as seven times. I have rarely seen a performance where I would call for encores, but the Lamplighters' Mikado on Friday at the Yerba Buena Center made me understand the impulse. Such familiar gems as "Three Little Maids from School" and "Here's a Howdy-Do" were so sparklingly sung, so energetically executed, and so quickly concluded that it would have been a treat to hear them again.
The first chords of the overture establish the production's reigning qualities of zest, merriment, and confidence. Conductor Baker Peeples and his 22 players made a tight ensemble, with no ragged edges or wavering intonations. The players seemed to have mastered the score and to be focusing their attention on rhythmic and expressive details. Oboist Kathleen Conner deserved special commendation for her nuanced rendition of the overture's slow theme, "The Moon and I."
There was a similar level of confidence and precision in the men's and women's choruses. The men were applauded at once for their jewel-toned robes and extravagant wigs, and again for their crisp "Japanese marionette" poses and robust ensemble. The women's voices were beautifully balanced in "Comes a Train of Little Ladies," with its lovely alto countermelody.
It was a special treat that this chorus of little ladies did not bustle on giggling, in conventional G&S fashion. Instead they entered with charming dignity and arranged themselves so we could admire their appliqued robes and pastel parasols. Giggling was handled, expertly but not annoyingly, by the well-matched trio of Joni DeGabriele (Yum-Yum), Robin Steeves (Pitti-Sing), and Laurie Keith (Peep-Bo). Director Barbara Heroux has kept the production very traditional, but spiced it up with clever and thoughtful details. For example, the choristers conspicuously ignored Nanki-Poo during the opening "sentimental" verses of his "A Wand'ring Minstrel, I." Clearly not in a sentimental mood, they did not tune in until he offered them patriotic ballads and a rousing sea chanty. This established the show's priorities at the outset: rowdy fun first, tender feelings a very distant second! Tenor Joshua LaForce (whose voice seems to have grown about 300% since he played Ralph Rackstraw in last year's HMS Pinafore) did an outstanding job as Nanki-Poo. He sounded ringing and confident in his solo and his playful "kissing duet" with Yum-Yum and in the soaring lines of the Act I finale. Tall and lanky, he made a perfect foil to David Cottingham's short, rotund Pooh-Bah and Christopher Walkey's still-shorter, Kewpie-doll-like Ko-Ko in their scenes together.
A good Mikado is probably impossible without a good Ko-Ko, and Walkey is something of an expert in the role, having played it in three previous Lamplighters productions. He has honed it to a fine blend of Monty Python and Charlie Chaplin, making the most of his rubbery face, short legs, and reedy, penetrating voice. His dialogue scenes were genuinely hilarious, as were his cheerful gloating in "Here's a Howdy-Do" and his reluctant wooing of Katisha. Roberta Wain-Becker, as Katisha, has to wait a long time to make her entrance. But it was a doozy, bursting in on the Act I finale with a duo of black-clad Ninjas. With her black-and-gray fright-wig and maniacal ranting, she suggested the late Divine impersonating Strauss' Elektra. She was equally funny, if more dignified, when upstaging her father-in-law-elect in their Act II number. And when she stopped ranting, she revealed a smoky, near-jazz vocalism that made her two slow numbers genuinely moving. Most of The Mikado is timeless, but there are certain dated elements for a modern company to deal with. They found a good solution to one trouble spot, revising Ko-Ko's "Little List" to include cell phones, Texas oilmen, and Dr. Laura. (The really marvelous thing in this song was how relevant Gilbert's "apologetic statesmen of the compromising kind" remains today.) In the Mikado's Act II list of crimes and punishments, by contrast, the esoteric jokes might as well have been in Russian for all they conveyed to the audience. We would have needed supertitled footnotes to appreciate his allusions to Parliamentary trains and fitless finger stalls.
Pooh-Bah's speeches invoking his protoplasmal ancestor were inevitably musty, but David Cottingham delivered them gamely. His attempts at aristocratic dignity (and his willingness to be insulted with very considerable bribes) became funnier as the farcical plot thickened. It would take more than an occasional dated joke to diminish the exhilarating charm of this Mikado. It is beautiful to look at, expertly performed, full of clever touches, and bubbling over with malicious yet innocent merriment. (Heather Hadlock is assistant professor of musicology at Stanford University. She is the author of Mad Loves: Women and Music in Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" (Princeton University Press, 2000).) ©2001 Heather Hadlock, all rights reserved |
