Word: mikados
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...GILBERT and Sullivan operetta is like sex: everyone has his favorite way of doing it, and no other way quite satisfies him. Furthermore, watching other people do it has a way of being very boring. Until last night, I thought that my favorite way of doing the Mikado was the classic D'Oyly Carte Company production which starred Martyn Gree. Now, I'm not so sure...
...Harvard Gilbert and Sullivan Society's interpretation of Mikado is thoroughly inspired. The musicians, the singers, the staging, all capture the essence of Gilbert's wit and Sullivan's score as few local productions ever have. The producers have pooled some of the finest talents on the Harvard campus-members of the Band and the HRO as well as seasoned G and S personnel...
...Mikado is one of the more difficult G and S works to perform. Most directors play it either for slapstick or subtlety, but rarely for both. This time, music director John Posner and stage director Timothy Rush have managed to bring out all of the nuances of the work. The orchestra was strong and vibrant, with a full-bodied character in all the parts. The overture came off surprisingly well, especially during the oboc solo, which is as good as any I've heard. The chorus established itself firmly in the opening number. ( If you want to know...
...first time, which on the face of it would seem impossible. He shows his versatility in the second act as a sniveling aspirant to the judgeship, the pathetic nephew of the Fat Prince (Harvey Cushing). Cushing comes across with a very funny performance in his own right as a Mikado-like royal butt-licker/petty intriguer...
...abjuring the musical comedy form altogether could he progress as a composer. Gilbert, characteristically less concerned with posterity, was nonetheless so moved by his collaborator's threats and supplications that he put aside the pedestrian libretto on which he was working to write what eventually was produced as the Mikado...