{"id":1717,"date":"2019-11-03T17:20:48","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T17:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/?p=1717"},"modified":"2019-11-03T17:20:56","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T17:20:56","slug":"not-such-a-little-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/2019\/11\/not-such-a-little-list.html","title":{"rendered":"Not Such A Little List"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ENO revives Jonathan Miller’s 1986 Mikado<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Sir John Tomlinson as the Mikado photo by Genivieve Girling<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite some newsworthy casting, there don\u2019t seem to have\nbeen many reviews of the current revival of Sir Jonathan Miller\u2019s bankable production\nof Gilbert and Sullivan\u2019s The Mikado<\/em> at the English National Opera.\nWhich is a little odd, because the title part of the emperor of Japan is being\nsung by Sir John Tomlinson. It is the 50th<\/sup> operatic role sung by this\nmost celebrated Wagnerian superstar, probably the greatest Wotan of our\nlifetimes \u2013 oh, and Hagen, Holl\u00e4nder, Gurnemanz and Hans Sachs. In Stefanos\nLazaridis\u2019s all white, Sybil Colefaxy, 1920s Mayfair Grand Hotel staging, Sir\nJohn is costumed (by Sue Blane) in an elephantine fat-suit, with a red silk\nhandkerchief waving out of the pocket of his snowy white suit, looking like a relatively\njolly Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

         Miller\u2019s\nproduction was premi\u00e8red at ENO in 1986, and Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner,\nseems to have been sung by baritone Richard Suart in most of the revivals. This\nyear his \u201cLittle List\u201d includes nearly every prominent, if not eminent politician\nin the coming election, starting with the shameful, immediate ex-Cabinet, and zooming\nin on \u201cBo-Jo\u201d, of course, but trumped by a gleeful bad word for the Donald. (\u201cNarcissist\u201d\nis such a useful rhyme for \u201clist.\u201d) The list of the condemned is changed for\neach revival, and I imagine 2019 will see many changes of those (who will none\nof them be missed) during the run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

         Resisting vainly\nthe acute temptation to pun that the production has been shored up by another\nstar, let\u2019s just say that the great comic baritone, Andrew Shore, sings\nPooh-Bah, Lord High Everything Else to Ko-Ko\u2019s Lord High Executioner.  Pooh-Bah\u2019s tracing of his genealogy to a single-celled\norganism is Gilbert\u2019s stunning reminder that he was a woke Victorian intellectual\nand knew his Darwin and Huxley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

         The roster of\nnames we ought to have known before entering the Coliseum to see this\nhundred-and-somethingth<\/sup>  performance of Sir Jonathan Miller\u2019s Mikado<\/em>,\nconcludes with mezzo Yvonne Howard as a steely and funny Katisha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

         The best\nsinging of the night comes, unsurprisingly, from the young lovers, both ENO Harewood\nArtists, tenor Elgan Ll\u00ffr\nThomas as Nanki-Poo and soprano Soraya Mafi as Yum-Yum. Her rendition of \u201cThe Sun\nWhose Rays Are All Ablaze\u201d made me wonder why this ballad hasn\u2019t been covered\nby every good singer of our own times \u2013 but then I reflected that it probably\ndoes take an operatic soprano with more than a hint of spinto to belt it out.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the interval I shared a glass of pinot grigio with the celebrated stage, screen and TV star, Anita Gillette, who pointed out how difficult the work is to perform, especially given its speed. Conductor Chris Hopkins didn\u2019t help the huge chorus much, as his tempi sometimes didn\u2019t allow them to cram in all the syllables Gilbert wrote for a single phrase of Sullivan\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s amusing to think how little\nwas known of Japanese music when the piece debuted in 1885, which accounts for\nthe eclecticism of Sullivan\u2019s score, I suppose. There is something both awesome\nand weird about a score that can incorporate the tune of the Japanese marching\nsong \u201cMiya sama,\u201d and also what sounds to me like an American hoe-down. \u201cMiya\nsama!\u201d \u201cYee haw!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the second half was\nfizzier than the first, what I enjoyed particularly about this lavish staging was\nthe dancing. The dozen or so boys and girls who trade their parlour-maid\u2019s high\nheels and bell-boys\u2019 footwear for tap shoes in Busby Berkeley-like formations\ngave me a thrill, thanks to Anthony van Laast\u2019s original choreography and Carol\nGrant\u2019s revival of it. If you haven\u2019t seen this ancient, classic production \u2013\nor haven\u2019t seen a revival of it for the past 20 years, you owe yourself the\nchance at least to see the stunning sets, costumes and choreography. Even if G\n& S is not your thing, this one is a cultural milestone; and its ticket\nsales will help to put the ENO onto a more sensible path, such as giving up the\nnonsense about not singing operas in their original languages. If it weren\u2019t\nfor the English surtitles, after all, though sung in English, the audience could\nnot possibly follow all of Gilbert\u2019s densely-worded lyrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hero of the evening, though,\nis Private Eye\u2019s <\/em> beloved Dr\nJonathan, Sir Jonathan Miller, whose direction (here revived by Elaine Tyler-Hall)\nis the source of the treasure-hoard that has allowed ENO\u2019s survival for most of\nmy opera-going life. It is no exaggeration to say that everyone on the stage \u2013\nand there were sometimes dozens \u2013 knew exactly where he or she was to stand, look,\ngesture or sing and to whom, at every moment he or she was on stage.  Detailed direction of this sort, of course, evolves\ninto or from the choreography as well as from the score. Miller is a genius at grouping\nthe players on the stage \u2013 just think of his ENO Rigoletto<\/em>, where the\nknots of people are eye-catchingly interesting, without actually distracting attention\nfrom the principal action on stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I have ever written anything\nworth reading about the performing arts, it is because I was lucky enough to\nwitness Miller in action (years ago), leading a workshop to teach young opera\nsingers about acting.  In a very few\nhours he changed their careers (and educated me) by elucidating the simple first\nprinciples of drama and psychology. It all boils down to the director making\ncertain that when a character speaks (or sings) to another character (or group\nof characters) he actually addresses that person or ensemble, and (if possible)\nmakes eye contact. Words or lyrics are almost always spoken or sung to someone\nelse on the stage, and relatively rarely to the audience, which is a\nconsequence of their meaning. The director who remembers and enforces this can make\na dramatic silk purse out of almost any old sow\u2019s ear, and, in doing so, pays\nhomage to Sir Jonathan Miller, the best and finest British director of the age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ENO revives Jonathan Miller’s 1986 Mikado Despite some newsworthy casting, there don\u2019t seem to have been many reviews of the current revival of Sir Jonathan Miller\u2019s bankable production of Gilbert and Sullivan\u2019s The Mikado at the English National Opera. Which is a little odd, because the title part of the emperor of Japan is being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbv6zV-rH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1717"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1720,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions\/1720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}