4.1 One Catalogue too Many?
4.2 Yam - A vegetable or Not?
4.3 No Minstrel He
4.4 Ko-Ko's Promotion
4.5 The Kaishaku
4.6 A pessimistic little train?
4.1 One Catalogue too Many?
George Timson asked: Am I the only Savoyard who thinks that TWO songs that catalogue the people disliked by the singer is ONE song too many for a single opera? Arthur Robinson replied: A certain W.S. Gilbert felt as you do, and wanted to cut one of them just before the opening, but was dissuaded by the company. And Mark Beckwith: This never occurred to me before. I think Princess Ida has Mikado beat for catalogs of dislikes, but I am counting the Ape song which isn't really a catalog. I have certainly never used this as a criterion of any judgement of a given work.
4.2 Yam - A vegetable or Not?
George Timson wondered: When Yum-Yum sings "and for yam I should get toko" what does 'yam' mean? 'Toko' of course means punishment (from the Hindu), but can 'yam' mean something other than a vegetable?
4.3 No Minstrel He
Henry A Stephens confessed: This has been bugging me for years. During the Act I finale, when Katisha tries to "unmask" Nanki-Poo, why do all the Chorus members try to silence her? I understand Nanki-Poo's motivation and Yum-Yum's motivation to want his father being the Mikado kept secret. But why the chorus? This trashes the idea that Gilbert's choruses were real people, not just parrots of refrains. Real people would want to hear this secret. Any ideas? Rica Mendes replied: Very simple: Yum- Yum squawks, "Ah-hah! I know!" The one action that Yum-Yum takes (the only intelligent one, if you ask me) in the entire show is, assumably after having this epiphany, is to quickly get the chorus to shout "Oni bikkuri shakurito!" And Tim Devlin replied: What often happens at this point is that Yum-Yum rushes about telling the chorus to interrupt. I can see your point that the average villager would be keen to hear exciting revelations. But I have always taken this moment to be a satisfying example of small-town solidarity against those interfering b-----s from the capital.
As did Arthur Robinson: Good point, but I can think of two reasons the chorus would interrupt Katisha:
1. She has probably antagonized them, and the female chorus are friends of Yum-Yum, so they'd do what she wants them to.
2. More important, and supremely logical: if they DON'T interrupt her, the opera ends (and joins Trial as the only G&S one-acter), and the chorus will cease to exist.
And Robert Jones suggested: Nanki-Poo & Yum-Yum are nice young people, while Katisha is a terrifying harridan. Why should not the people of the town take side with personable, amenable folk? Of course, their hearts should break when she voices her lament, but, well, short shrift to her till then.
David Craven offered this: I saw an effective technique wherein the reason the crowd shouted down Katisha is that Nanki-Poo and Num-Num started passing out money to the crowd right after Num-Num squawked "Ah-hah! I know!". I can't think of any other reason that they might help her out. Tom Shepard observed: Real people do not sing in choruses, at least not on my street corner. Also, despite its obvious plot necessity, I can convince myself that Yum-Yum knows how to work a crowd and appeal to mob rule when necessary. Lisa Jo Hafferkamp twitted: You must forgive them; they're all quite mad. Quite. But don't worry, they're under treatment for it. And Bruce Miller chimed in: It's also within the realm of possibility that the townspeople know perfectly well what Katisha is trying to tell them, but want to avoid her actually being able to say that she tell them. Ever hear of avoiding being served with a subpoena?
4.4 Ko-Ko's Promotion
Rowan Donoghue wrote: I have just been reading through The Mikado in preparation for producing it as our school musical and I noticed that there are two reasons given for Ko-Ko's rise to Lord High Executioner. In Pish-Tush's song "Our Great Mikado" he explains that Ko-Ko is let out on bail because he is next to be condemned, and therefore could not cut anyone else's head off until he remove his own... implying that relief was given to the town, as no one else could be executed for flirting. In the dialogue that follows, it is explained by Pooh-Bah, that the Mikado being quite logical could not see any difference between the judge who condemns and the "industrious mechanic" who carries out the sentence", and therefore rolled the two offices into one. It would seem that Sullivan and Gilbert were following slightly different aspects of the plot. Derrick McClure replied: Surely Pooh-Bah explains how the post of Lord High Executioner came to be established in the first place, and Pish-Tush explains how Ko-Ko came to hold it? The two explanations are not contradictory - they refer to different accents. Chris Wain observed; I agree with Derrick. The implication of Pooh-Bah's "It is" speech, is that just as there are also circuit judges (lesser ones, for those who don't know the English judicature), there are also circuit executioners. Now why wasn't one of those given the job of beheading those flirters on Death Row? I think their ranks must also have been filled from amongst those condemned to die. We know only the story of the most famous of them.
4.5 The Kaishaku
Ted Rice wrote: This is another of the minor errors that can be found throughout Mikado - not that they detract from its enjoyment ! Japan did have appointed executioners, but they were usually tanners. The " industrious mechanic" who carried out the sentence was usually a close friend or relative of the condemned, chosen for his skill with the sword. This gentleman, for the post of Kaishaku was that of such rank, did the deed. Although decapitation was commonly used for the lower classes as well as the upper, there is no record of the 'boiling oil or lead' being used on anyone; as Ko-Ko was by decree a gentleman, he would have been offered hara kiri (as would have the other two), which usually ended with decapitation. Pitti-Sing would have been allowed to save her honor by cutting her throat, rather than disembowelling herself, before being bisected. (Jeff DeMarco drily interjected: Not to mention being divisible into three!) Customs of execution in Japan are detailed in a scholarly work, "The Book of Execution," by Geoffrey Abbott, a retired Yeoman Warder.
4.6 A pessimistic little train?
[During the OOTW discussion of Princess Ida Andrew Crowther made passing reference to the words of Comes a train of little ladies and elicited the following reply from] Derrick McClure: Andrew, I don't agree that the lyrics of "Comes a train of little ladies" are "essentially pessimistic": to "IS it but a world of trouble?" the answer could easily be "No, it's not!" And look what follows in the opera: three of that very "train of little ladies" asserting the most joyously optimistic outlook imaginable! No, "Comes a train..." does not express pessimism but wide-eyed wonder, a hint of apprehension (natural on stepping for the last time out of the school gates into the big world), and a delighted response to the beauty and joy that there IS in the said big world. To which Andrew replied: I see your point.... But notice that all their questions point the same way. They don't ask, "But on the other hand, could the world be a much jollier place, and the glory of its treasures exactly what it seems to be?" They're toying with this mood of callow disillusionment - though admittedly they're nowhere near as far gone as Ida. The fact that they're inclined to dance and sing isn't incompatible with the idea that they're also inclined to cynicism. I'm sure flesh-and-blood parallels could be found.
Page created 16 March 1999