by Gilbert & Sullivan

April 13 - May 5, 2012

Best Comic Opera of All Time. The Mikado, a highly moral sovereign, has issued a decree condemning to death everybody found guilty of flirtation, unless married. The problem is that everybody from the monarch on down is guilty. Even the Lord High Executioner himself.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, produced by the D’Oyly Carte Co., opened March 1885 in London. By the end of that year at least 150 companies were in production throughout Europe and America. Its popularity continues today and it is arguably the most popular opera ever.

The fictitious setting, the town of Titipu, provided the perfect cover for librettist W.S. Gilbert to satirize British politics and institutions. Simply disguising them as Japanese.

The audience leaves The Mikado smiling and often humming old favorites like “A Wand’ring Minstrel, I” ,”Three Little Maids from School are We,” and “The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring.”