This year’s Opera Workshop production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado,” or “The Town of Titipu,” Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic British operetta, ridicules nineteenth century Japanese stereotypes and satirizes the British political system. The boisterous storyline involves mistaken identity, doomed love, and absurd plot-twists.
The opera will be performed in February or March of 2014.
Seniors Aaron Sandford and David Krueger and juniors Casey McKee and Maran McLeod brainstormed over Skype this summer, to discuss the feasibility of staging a full-length opera given budget and time constraints.
Their faculty director and supervisor, Director of Voice Studies Melissa Osmond, gave the student team her full support. The students and other faculty participants, including voice instructors Kristen Matson and Cynthia Brundage Knight and teacher of Piano Debbie Wyse, divided production responsibilities to manage the commitment. Sandford will direct the chorus’ singing, Kreuger and McKee will direct dialogue and staging, and McLeod will manage choreography and movement.
“We all have the capability to lend aid to each other whenever it’s needed,” McKee said.
Shortly after last year’s opera workshop, Sandford asked Osmond about putting on a Gilbert and Sullivan production. Sandford grew up playing and singing “The Mikado” and knows most of the music by heart. Likewise, McKee participated in the “The Mikado” as a sixth grader.
“It’s hysterically funny,” McKee said. “There’s nothing like musical theater –– it brings the ridiculousness of comedy to life in a very special way.”
Sandford and Krueger are both directing and acting in the opera.
Prior to the opera’s action, the Mikado of Japan declares flirting a capital crime, and Titipu’s authorities, including Kreuger’s character Poo-Bah, respond by appointing Ko-Ko, played by Sandford, the Lord High Executioner. They presume Ko-Ko, the next in line for decapitation, will refuse to behead himself, thus saving any other condemned flirts.
Junior Claire Ziegler plays Yum-Yum, Ko-Ko’s ward, who loves Nanki-Poo, played by senior Nick Allen. A wandering minstrel, Nanki-Poo is also the wayward son of the Mikado, played by sophomore Tomas Valle. While Ko-Ko wants Yum-Yum for his wife, the elderly Katisha, played by senior Miranda Schoonover, endeavors to force Nanki-Poo to marry her. Seniors Rachel Maloley and Emily Whitmer play Yum-Yum’s friends Pity-Sing and Peep-Bo, and senior Nathan Hitchcock takes on Pish-Tush, a Titipu nobleman.
The production team held auditions Sept. 2 and 3. Although they easily cast the female chorus and leads, Sandford had to recruit additional male chorus members. The cast begins rehearsal within a week, but McLeod said they could use more tenors.
“We want everyone who can sing and who wants to be involved to have a chance,” Sandford said.
He encourages interested students to contact him.
Of the four student directors, only McLeod plans to pursue a career in music and theatre. She said a summer internship at the Los Angeles Theatre Center inspired her to work directly with Hillsdale student artists.
Kreuger said directing three scenes in last year’s workshop taught him “what kind of instruction really stuck with people,” a skill he hopes to use in a nonmusical field in the future.
Describing favorite scenes from The Mikado revealed the directors’ musical passion. Sandford said he loves the “epic” first act finale.
“It’s all these turbulent lines and the plot coming together into this big, loud finish, and the music is very dramatic,” Sandford said.
Conversely, Sandford enjoys Ko-Ko’ s lyric “Tit-Willow” solo, in which he attempts to woo Katisha with the parable of a sparrow that commits suicide for love.
He said that the Mikado provided a “nice mix” between the “dramatic, happy, fun” and the “sweet, touching, and beautiful.”
