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Picture of the day

Cover of the c. 1895 edition of the vocal score to The Mikado. First performed in London in 1885, The Mikado is the ninth of fourteen comic opera collaborations between the composer Arthur Sullivan and the dramatist W. S. Gilbert. Gilbert was able to satirise British politics and institutions freely by setting the opera in a fictionalised Japan. The story: After a cheap tailor is appointed Lord High Executioner of Titipu, he tries to save the town by pretending to execute the disguised son of the Mikado (the Emperor of Japan) for the capital offence of flirting; this scheme backfires. The Mikado's original run at the Savoy Theatre was 672 performances, nearly a record at the time. It remains one of the most frequently performed musical theatre pieces in history, with regular professional and amateur revivals.Illustration: Unknown; restoration: Adam Cuerden