The Mikado - Act 1 Finale.flv

The Act 1 finale to the 1973 production with the marvellous Heather Begg as Katisha.
Katisha - Heather Begg
Yum-Yum - Valerie Masterson
Pooh-Bar - Ian Wallace
Koko - Derek Hammond-Stroud
Peep-Bo - Sara De Javelin
Pitti-Sing - Janet Hughes
More info to come

[@danhan22]

I like the sound quality (it makes the chorus sound fuller) as well as the choreography. Heather Begg does a really good job, too. Wish this BBC production was available for purchase on DVD and CD.

[@aldousatwood4978]

A beautiful performance all around - it captures the nasty fickleness of the denizens of Titi-Poo, the effective absurdity of the censoring of Katisha, and the utterly bathetic mockery of Katisha's "The Hour of Gladness is Dead and Gone" (a truly beautiful moment, emotive, elegantly scored and versed and put into such a grotesque context - one of the most vicious and brilliant moments of G&S in my opinion). All in a superb production. Bravo!

[@tommytimp]

Katisha's entire character is basically beautiful and emotive moments in grotesque context. Good call.

[@steinwaygrande3971]

Brings back happy memories as a 14 year old lad at boarding school performing in the chorus of the Mikado. The following year we did the Pirates of Penzance. The following year owing to demand we did a repeat of the Mikado.

[@ImpossibleFilms]

Katisha was my favorite caracter of all of them

[@whazzat8015]

Soul of it. tough role and when done well a joy

[@crazyorganist1609]

Not an easy role but Heather Begg sails through it

[@robertmwoodley1502]

Heather Begg went on to have a career as a leading mezzo with Australian Opera. I saw her many times and her Katisha was terrifying, but her Carmen was gorgeous! So many wonderful performances with her wonderful voice!

[@oboewizard]

This is a terrific performance!!!

[@glenndabreo3581]

This is wonderful. Truly Dolyly Carte. The conductor is a purest. The only kind. Excellent cast. Great direction. Not over choreographed. The conductors tempi are perfect. He listened to Isadore Godfrey's recordings.

[@treesny]

Conductor David Lloyd-Jones (1934-2022) had nothing whatever to do with the D'Oyly Carte, and your assumption that he must have "listened to Isidore Godfrey's recordings" is rather presumptuous! Fyi, Lloyd-Jones was the founding conductor of Opera North, as well as a scholar who edited editions of (among other works) The Gondoliers and Mussorgsky's original Boris Godunov. He made fine English-language performing translations of the Mussorgsky and of Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin. He also recorded a great deal of British music with distinction; I particularly cherish his version of Vaughan Williams's ballet Job, and of the complete Sullivan/Mackerras Pineapple Poll. Like Charles Mackerras, he brought a real depth of musical experience to Sullivan's music, as in this wonderful studio production.

[@Possum36711]

This is wonderful. How I would love to have a tape of the whole performance!

[@jasonhurd4379]

Heather Begg is a jewel. She played the definitive Marcellina in Ponnelle's film of Le Nozze di Figaro.

[@-Tesla-Live_]

Heather Begg does a fabulous job here. She was also a stunning Lady Jane in Patience.

[@MrCuddlyable3]

Yum-yum leading the protest chorus is a nice touch

[@magicalfluffybunny]

We did this as our musical when I was a junior in high school. Fun to play in the pit orchestra for this

[@PlumfacesamaYTP]

Great cinematography

[@gerardbedecarter]

Excellent !!!!

[@richardduployen6429]

I'm not sure if Ian does the wheezing. He told me in a letter he invented that for the Glyndebourne recording. He was an actor/singer like me & I once saw him in a play. He was the only singer to do a non-posh accent for the audio Sargent "Beggar's Opera" (there was a double cast of actors). Unfortunately we had similar in the otherwise good modern recording when the Macheath speaks in Cockney but sings posh. Surely he's a gentleman of the road so he alone of the gang doesn't have an accent? Ian was recording stories for the blind when he was quite an advanced age,

[@klassicalkid90]

Who is singing Pitti-Sing? I really like her voice!

[@TheSpinDoctor]

Ordinarily, I don’t like a mezzo as Katisha - the timbre is often very odd and I prefer to hear a contralto - but Heather Begg is the exception! In the region of “rise triumphant over all”, the original hand-copied conductor score for Act One has an opt-up for Katisha written in the same bar but I’ve never actually heard anyone perform it on a recording. I’d always assumed it was there as an “if you do cast a mezzo, at least use her!” moment that a contralto could not stretch to, yet I cannot recall a Katisha ever singing it on a recording. Does anyone know of one?

[@TheRichie63]

This has been the best Katisha since Monica Sinclair.....

[@jasonhurd4379]

Jean Allister on the 1962 Sadler's Wells set is also superlative.

[@Myself-anonymously]

. . . At 0:47 , does the actor who plays the part of Nanki Poo have a brother? . . . the one in the yellow kimono . . . anyone else but me notice ?

[@danhan22]

@Possum36711 Is there a DVD available for purchase? If so, where might one obtain it?

[@Myself-anonymously]

I remember there was a different recording of this on youtube. . . Nanki Poo was a bit more nice-to-look-at...when he was a bit more blurry...😅 But that's just my personal opinion. he still sings pretty though. Yumyum is still just as beautiful if not moreso. 😊

[@SadhuBiochemist]

Katisha looks a bit like Margaret Thatcher, Attilla the Hen.😂

[@kangaroofuno]

Is mikado racist?

[@PlanetBobstar]

Not really, it's intentionally ignorant of Japanese culture but doesn't sincerely try to demonize Japan. However a number of performances of it do resort to racist techniques like yellowface or grotesque accents and slant eye gestures.

[@Gotofy105]

Yes and No, it just depends on if you think being pretty off the mark of a culture is racist or just ignorant as PlanetBobstar pointed out.

[@bovineking8927]

It was originally intended as a satire of England, with Japan used only as a setting. This setting, however, can be problematic nowadays.

[@treesny]

@@PlanetBobstar Really? Well, if there are productions that use "yellowface" or other racialist markers, they certainly aren't following Gilbert and Sullivan's intentions, judging from the photos and pictures of the earliest productions. The Mikado was transparantly a satire on a rigid, class-bound Britain; a moden equivalent might be Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Mahagonny, set in an over-the-top money-obsessed "America" that was a stand-in for Germany in the precarious 1920s. Director Mike Leigh (Topsy Turvy) has rightly called the assertions that The Mikado is racist "rubbish."