A much-loved comic classic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan will arrive in Inverness next week.
The Mikado will be performed at Eden Court, staged by Scottish Opera and the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company between May 19-21.
The new production began in Glasgow and will travel on to Aberdeen after its stay at Eden Court.
Audiences also have the chance to attend The Mikado Unwrapped on May 18 which delve further in to the show and how it was created.
Written in 1885 and set in the fictional Japanese town of Titipu in the 1880s, this ever-popular opera satirises British society, customs and pretentions through a farcical plot with gags aplenty.
The Mikado has decreed that those caught flirting should be sentenced to death.
However, things take a complicated turn when his son Nanki-Poo falls for Yum-Yum, whose beauty has also caught the eye of Ko-Ko the Lord High Executioner.
Featuring many of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular songs, including ‘A wand’ring minstrel I’, ‘Three little maids from school are we’ and ‘I’ve got a little list’, The Mikado is seen as perfect for opera beginners.
Director Martin Lloyd-Evans said: “Make no mistake, The Mikado is as much about Japan as Yes, Minister.
“Transposing his satire to an exotic, and at the time very popular culture, enabled Gilbert to cut all the more deeply into his target – the British ruling classes.
“Over-zealous policy-making heedless of the impact on the populace, the self-serving ambition of the entitled few – how little has changed since Victorian times.
“At the heart of all this satire, carried by Sullivan’s musical brilliance, The Mikado aims to give the audience a great night out.”
Among those helping bring the show to life is costume designer Dick Bird who last year who last year won Best Design at the UK Theatre Awards for The Hudsucker Proxy, and whose recent work has included creating the sets of Kate Bush’s Before The Dawn shows.
He said: “It’s no great revelation that Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado is a lot more about England and the English than it is about Japan. In a spirit that we feel is very close to the original, our production collides the great Victorian Music Hall with high Japanese art.
“I hope we’ve found a new way to be irreverent and subversive with two cultures we truly admire and adore.”
