Search - John Cameron, Geraint Evans, Ian Wallace :: Gilbert & Sullivan: The Mikado

Great Singing, senza Dialog

Peter Prainito | Lombard, IL USA | 07/19/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have become quite a fan of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. Currently I own 4 of the Malcolm Sargent recordings on EMI (Pirates, HMS, Mikado & Gondoliers) and love them all. Why? The singing is breathtakingly beautiful. I especially enjoy tenor Richard Lewis' contribution in each set. Some reviewers have found the "tempi slow" in this Mikado, but this is not evident to me. I find this Mikado quite entertaining. The only thing I wish it had (and the others in this series) is the dialog. Afterall, the dialog helps relay the story and contains Gilbert's wit, which is just as enjoyable as Sullivan's wonderul music. For dialog you need to turn to the London/Decca recordings with the D'Oyly Carte Company conducted by Isidore Godfrey, which are very fine as well. To be honest, I would not want to be without either the EMI or London recordings, since each has it's own merits. If possible, get both as I have done. Highly Recommended, but remember....no dialog!"

A Tale of Two Sargents

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 11/03/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is the recording of "The Mikado" to get if you are primarily interested in Sullivan's orchestral music. There are those who would cavil at that statement, citing the fact that he did not write the overture. For them, I shall point out that although Sullivan did not write every bar, being habitually late in the drudge work of composing, he certainly laid out the order of tunes, outlined the instrumentation, assigned the task to a friend well-acquainted with his style, and fine-tuned the piece during the rehearsals for the opening night, which he conducted. As for the rest of the comic opera, that is almost entirely in his own hand.



This 1957 recording was the first of a series of stereo G&S recordings issued by EMI. The cast was hand-picked from the luminaries of the English operatic stage. The idea was to enhance and illuminate the comic operas with the finest native English singers. Like many brilliant schemes, it just did not work. The worst clunker of the bunch was the most famous of the lot, Geraint Evans. His problem was that he did not become Ko-Ko, he remained an opera singer who was singing Ko-Ko. (His reviews were so bad that he quickly dropped out of the series. He did not want to become identified as a Gilbert and Sullivan singer, he said. He had NOTHING to fear on that matter!) The same was true of the Pish-Tush, Pooh-Bah and the Mikado. Not one of the four managed to characterize his part. Any one was interchangeable with any other. (For that Amazon reviewer who was so taken with the Pish-Tush, I suggest that a comparison with George Baker in the earlier Sargent recording might prove a revelation.) Richard Lewis, was unquestionably the finest tenor ever to record Nanki-Poo. But he was far from being the finest performer of the rôle. That distinction belongs either to Leonard Osborn (1950) or to Derek Oldham (1928). The Three Little Maids and Katisha were all fine without being in any way extraordinary.



Much of the commentary in these Amazon reviews has been concerned with the slow tempos chosen by Sir Malcolm Sargent in this series. I am one who feels that he is too slow--not disastrously so, mind you, but still not right. For evidence in support of my position, I would call upon a gentleman of great musical knowledge and impeccable G&S credentials, Dr. Malcolm Sargent of 1928.



Beginning in 1926, HMV issued a series of G&S recordings in the very latest technological medium, electronic recordings on 78 rpm discs, roughly twenty-two sides per show. They were offered on sale in the United States for about $13, a very, very stiff price. The first two, "Trial by Jury" and "The Gondoliers" were conducted by the undistinguished Harry Norris. Thereafter, the series was given over to the much more prestigious Dr. Sargent. Although many D'Oyly Carte Company regulars appeared on the HMV sets, they were not quite D'Oyly Carte Company recordings, for HMV house singers were cast in various parts. For marketing purposes, however, they were boldly marked as being "under the supervision of Rupert D'Oyly Carte." (Rupert was the third head of the family firm created by his father, Richard D'Oyly Carte and continued by his step-mother, Helen Lenoir D'Oyly Carte. His daughter, Bridget, succeeded him and headed the company until it was murdered by the penny-pinching government of Maggie Thatcher.) A well-known tale is that D'Oyly Carte and Sargent butted heads over the 1928 "Mikado." Rupert objected to the tempos chosen by Sargent because they were simply too fast for any practical staging. Malcolm quite logically pointed out that he was conducting a recording, not a stage production. Dr. Sargent carried the day.



The 1928 "Mikado" clocks in at about 84 minutes--against 90 minutes for the 1957 version. It is a highly satisfying performance with every syllable from the fully characterized and clearly individualized principal singers precisely articulated. Almost thirty years later, Sargent seems to have labored under the burdensome weight of his knighthood. In every variant reading, the lugubrious older Sargent is wrong and the sprightly younger Sargent is right.



As for the missing dialogue, feel free to regard that as a fatal omission or as a welcome relief as you see fit.



On the whole, this is very likely the most musical rendering of "The Mikado" on CD. It is, however, far from being the best performance.



Four stars.



WARNING FOR THE EASILY SHOCKED: The 1928 version, as might be expected, contained historically accurate but distinctly non-PC epithets in both Ko-Ko's "Little List" song and the Mikado's "Punishment Fit the Crime" number. Quite to my surprise, I find that the words were still in Sargent's 1957 version."