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"The Mikado" as you have probably never seen it presented before.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
One of the things we enjoy here at OperaOnline.us is looking at things that are a little different. About a month ago I received an e-mail from David Barker, the development director of the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City. He sent me a link with the brief notation: "This may be a little far a field for you, but it's definitely modern and different." I looked at the site and the link he sent, and you know, he was right: it was different and interesting, and apparently well reviewed and enjoyed by the viewing public. And so, this month, we introduce you to something different in the way of opera and trust that, just as we did, you will find it intriguing and worth a look.
By: Paul Joseph Walkowski
OperaOnline.us
In the summer of 2004 the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas in collaboration with the Paul Mesner Puppet Company, staged a performance of Gilbert & Sullivan’s venerable “The Mikado” at the restored 1000-plus seat Folly Theater in downtown Kansas City. The performance was a triumph by every measure, attracting 3,500 patrons over several performances. Paul Horsley, writing for the Kansas City Star said of it: “I may never want to go back to a traditional production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic operetta: I’ll always be comparing subsequent versions with this peerlessly sophisticated rendering.”
That’s a pretty flattering review of a production, by any standard. The 20 piece orchestra, led by Bruce Sorrell was undoubtedly pleased, as were the nine soloists and a chorus comprised of six. The artistic director, Andy Anderson was pleased. Oh, and did I forget to mention that the 21 people working the 35 life-sized rod puppets in full costumes designed by Christopher Leitch, behind some pretty colorful rigging, imaginatively designed and painted by Paul Mesner and Tom Sciacca, were pretty happy too? It was such a successful production, there is talk of doing a puppet version of “Hansel and Gretel”.
A puppet opera? sniff the cognoscenti, never!
Well, hold on there a minute, this isn’t kids play. Sure, the action takes place in the fictional city of “Titipu” and the city is inhabited by characters with whimsical names like: Ko-Ko and Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum and Pooh-Bah. Even so, pulling something like this off as legitimate opera is serious business that takes planning and coordination, and subrogation of ego to performance – remember the actual singers are off to the sides, barely visible to the audience. According to David G. Barker, former President of the opera company, and currently its Development Director, the idea was seeded about three years ago and grew out of a conversation between himself and his wife, Diane, the Executive Director of the Mesner Puppet Company. Barker says the idea intrigued him, especially since the owner of the puppet company wanted to use his puppets for Mikado for years. Barker took the idea to his Board and Paul Mesner brought the idea to his, and the rest as they say, is history. “When we first conceived of the idea,” he said in an e-interview with OperaOnline.us, “I thought a puppet opera would be pretty easy, as it turns out having puppets just adds another level of difficulty to an art form which is already complicated.”
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Indeed, in addition to the cost -- over $110,000 -- coordinating the singers, who stood off to the side, and working with the orchestra, the puppeteers -- the ones manipulating the life size puppets -- also had to learn the music. “The puppets reacted to the singers,” Barker said, “who faced the audience with the puppets behind them. The singers had the score in front of them, but the puppeteers had to have it memorized so they could move the lips at the right time.” All in all, he said, it required a month of practice for the principal puppets and two weeks of rehearsal for the supernumerary puppeteers. In addition to learning the musical cues the puppeteers had to coordinate their movements behind the scenery. “There was a lot of choreography going on under those puppets,” Barker said, being one of the puppeteers himself. “For instance in the opening scene of the second act, when Yum-Yum is being readied for her wedding day, there were seven puppets and twelve puppeteers under them, and no one stepped on anyone else.”
The end result was beyond gratifying. After months of working on the costumes, even hiring an expert in Japanese Kimonos, and months to construct the puppets and scenery, and then rehearse with the puppeteers, the finished product turned out to be as Paul Horsley of the Kansas City Star said, a “phenomenal artistic success. . . that lay in the meticulous detail placed upon the puppets, set design and just as important music.” “The reviewer referred to the set as ‘eye candy’” Barker says, adding “It should have won an award [and] it may yet as this program is being looked at in Flint, Michigan and San Antonio, Texas, and I’m sure it will go elsewhere.”
The Civic Opera Theater’s reincarnation of The Mikado is but the latest in a line of productions that date back to the original showing at the Savoy in London on March 14, 1885, a New York premier at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in August of the same year, a Broadway revival that occurred in 1927, and a Virginia Theatre production that was staged in 1987. And as a tribute to its audience appeal, this operetta was made into three movies: 1938, 1969 and 1998. Not many operas can boast such a record. And even though it is an operetta, and it is meant to amuse and entertain, those who staged the opera say neither should it be dismissed. The effect is very real once things begin. “One night when we were rehearsing,” Barker recalls, “the accompanist heard something he didn’t like and wanted to go back through it. He turned to the puppets and said something like, ‘Do you mind if we go back to line . . .’ and suddenly realized he needed to be addressing the singers. Puppets do that. They seem to take on a human form.”
Speaking of human form, there is the matter of singers. After all what is an opera without them? “The singers had a great time,” according to Barker. There were no bad feelings, no feelings of inadequacy, or of being cheated out of a credit. “Singers love to sing,” Barker explains, “They were in full view of the audience when they were singing so they had plenty of face time. I didn’t ask any of them," he adds, "but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that they didn’t feel they were in second place. I think they felt that they were partnered with the puppets, but weren’t upstaged in any way.” And how do you select singers for such an assignment? Barker says the company auditions as if the singers were the only one’s on stage. “The best singers get the roles,” he says, adding, “in some cases I think this was pretty easy for singers. They didn’t have to learn anything, as they had the scores in front of them. I think they had a lot of fun doing this.”
As for future productions, it’s really not a question of whether puppet opera will catch on, it has been around for centuries. The issue initially was whether a sophisticated opera audience and those who produce opera would take it seriously and go to see it. If the Kansas audience is representative, the answer is they will. “We asked for audience feedback,” Barker says, “and from The Mikado, we got it in spades. [After all] part of the purpose of our collaboration with the puppet company was to expose puppet audiences to opera and opera audiences to puppets." The marriage obviously worked. "We have been repeatedly asked if we would ever consider doing another puppet opera. The answer is an instantaneous, enthusiastic Yes!”
The fact is, if the show can be taken on the road, it may, in time, generate enough of a buzz – or curiosity – such that it finds a niche that is best viewed through its own unique prism. If it can accomplish that, it is certainly possible that a number of other productions might also be suitable for this unique format. As Barker observes, “Puppets are engaging” and can do things in this production that are called for in the libretto but impossible to carry off with live actors. Ko-Ko’s lament in “The Criminal cried” aria, is a case in point. The libretto describes the beheading of Nanki-Poo, and calls for the head to bow in deference. “Puppets can do things people can’t”, Barker concludes, adding, “Whatever it is that puppet [theater] does to people, it seems to be universal. It throws an aura around the opera experience. I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to present another puppet opera to a traditional audience. I am convinced they would fall in love with it as easily as they did with the Mikado.”
