Director: JEFF CLARKE
National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company
When I first created the Opera della Luna Mikado, more years ago than I care to remember, it was following the success of our Parson’s Pirates and The Ghosts of Ruddigore. I don’t remember then any hoo-hah about political correctness or racial awareness, but I do remember that I definitely didn’t want to do a kimono and black wig production. Why not? Because firstly it didn’t interest me, and secondly it would seem just a pale imitation of a traditional D’Oyly Carte production, which was definitely not what OdL was about.
There are many reasons why The Mikado is called the greatest of the Savoy Operas. In Vienna the noted critic, Eduard Hanslick, wrote that the opera’s “unparalleled success” was attributable not only to the libretto and the music, but also to “the wholly original stage performance, unique of its kind, by Mr D’Oyly Carte’s artists, riveting the eye and ear with its exotic allurement.” The wit and sparkle of the show’s book and score rightly secured its position as the most successful of the operas, but the riot of colour which exploded on the stage of the Savoy Theatre on opening night certainly added to the huge enthusiasm for the production. Many a review wrote of the “blinding splendour of the dresses”.
My challenge was how to re-create that “wow factor” without reference to kimonos, which in any case, to my mind had become over-familiar, and lost their “wow”. Initially I didn’t have the answer, but I happened to be in New York some weeks later and went to an exhibition of Versace designs at the Metropolitan Museum. I certainly didn’t have The Mikado in mind, but when I turned a corner in the exhibition and saw a mini-crinoline, witty, sassy and sexy, I knew instantly I had the solution. Remembering that Ko-Ko was a cheap tailor (a fact perhaps not made very much of by Gilbert), the ideas began to form. Why not make Ko-Ko a would-be Versace, or Gaultier? A creative popinjay who could people the show with his own exotic creations of blinding splendour.
I have now lost count of how many revivals we have staged of the production, and how many Yum-Yums have worn that mini-crinoline, but in June 2025 the Show was recreated again in London, Manchester, Bath and Salisbury, and I was delighted to find that it was as fresh, funny and colourful as the first time we put it in front of an eager audience at Newbury’s Corn Exchange many years ago.
I have long entertained a fanciful idea of staging the production on a larger scale with a chorus and full orchestra, and found the moment last year to plant the seed of an idea to Neil and Janet. I wasn’t really sure whether they would be interested, or whether Opera della Luna’s work is too radically revisionary for the National G&S Company. I am delighted that they have embraced the idea, and am looking forward very much to working on the new enlarged version. It will certainly not be a case of simply filling the stage with more people. I will have to find a balance between preserving the energy and pizzazz of the original OdL show, and creating a new full-scale 2026 production of a masterpiece that has impact far beyond 19th century tradition and questions of racial sensibility. It is a challenge I address with relish.
