The Mikado (1959 Television Cast Recording)
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Music CD Cover
Composer: W.S. GilbertComposer: Arthur Sullivan
Performer: Groucho Marx
Performer: Robert Rounseville
Performer: Stanley Holloway
Performer: Barbara Meister
Performer: Dennis King
Performer: Helen Traubel
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Cast Recording, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2007-09-11
Music Label: Drg
Soundtracks:
- Overture
- If You Want To Know Who We Are
- A Wand'ring Minstrel, I
- Behold The Lord High Executioner
- As Some Day It May Happen
- Three Little Maids
- Were You Not to Ko-Ko Plighted
- With Aspect Stern
- Braid the Raven Hair
- The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze
- Here's A How-De-Do!
- Miya Sama
- A More Humane Mikado
- The Criminal Cried
- The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring
- Alone, And Yet Alive
- Willow, Tit-Willow
- There Is Beauty
- For He's Gone and Married Yum-Yum
Free Music Notes for The Mikado (1959 Television Cast Recording)
Free Music Review: Great Recording!
Hit: 5 Stars
This version of "The Mikado" is one of the best ever recorded, with popular stars in most major roles, including Groucho Marx as Ko-Ko. It is also one of the most popularly accessible, with its length reduced to less than 60 minutes and virtually (if not actually) all of the dialogue from the adaptation included. Expertly truncated by Gilbert & Sullivan icon Martyn Green, this studio recording of the 1960 Bell Telephone Hour special includes everything necessary to be well-introduced to the full operetta, though I would have preferred to see Katisha's solo omitted to allow complete versions of the numbers included; there are some jarring edits within some of the songs. However, the libretto had to not only be reduced to a single hour but also to three fairly equal parts, so that may have been one of Green's motivations in cutting it as he did. (The oddest shortening is of the Act 1 Finale, which omits Katisha altogether. This may be the reason for including Katisha's solo later in the play, but it also may have been a favorite of Green's and a necessary spotlight for the formidable Helen Traubel.)
The sound is exceptional, as this is not a transcription from the live performance but a studio recording that preserves all the spontaneity of the TV show while offering first-rate engineering. The only quibble I've had with the recording is the heavy mic-ing of Groucho's daughter Melinda on "Three Little Maids," which emphasizes her untrained voice at the expense of the other two singers.
Aside from Groucho's highly enjoyable Ko-Ko (with a surprisingly moving "Titwillow"), Dennis King's Mikado is of particular note, and very original in its depiction of the emperor as a happy technocrat rather than the haughty and foreboding presence typical of most productions.
This release itself is marred only by the notes, which contain some of Will Friedwald's not-unusual sloppy research, such as claiming Green stopped performing after his elevator accident--in fact, he carried on bravely with a prosthetic leg--and implying that this was Barbara Meister's only significant credit; among other accomplishments, she was brought by Richard Rodgers to be one of the original Maria Von Trapps on Broadway and in the national touring company of "The Sound of Music."
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