The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time. By the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera.
Isabel Emily Jay was an English opera singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and in Edwardian musical comedies. During Jay's career, picture postcards were immensely popular, and Jay was photographed for over 400 different postcards.
William Martin Green, known by his stage name, Martyn Green, was an English actor and singer. He is remembered for his performances and recordings as principal comedian of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, in the leading patter roles of the Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas in the 1930s and 1940s, and for his career in America from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Margaret Valerie Masterson is a retired English opera singer, a lecturer and Vice-President of British Youth Opera. After study in Italy, she began to sing opera in Europe. Returning to England, Masterson performed as principal soprano with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1964 to 1969, becoming popular with audiences and participating in several of the company's recordings, as well as those of Gilbert and Sullivan for All and the BBC.
Leonora Braham was an English opera singer and actress primarily known as the creator of principal soprano roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas.
Geraldine Ulmar was an American singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
George Tyrell Thorne was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in the comic baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, especially on tour and in the original New York City productions. He married D'Oyly Carte chorister Geraldine Thompson.
Marjorie Eyre-Parker was an English singer and actress, best known for her performances in first the soprano, and later the mezzo-soprano, roles of the Savoy operas. She performed with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for more than two decades and later performed with the J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company. She married another D'Oyly Carte performer, Leslie Rands, in 1926.
Elsie Griffin was an English opera singer, best known for her performances in the soprano roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Emily Mary Owen was an English opera singer and actress, known for her performances in soprano roles of the Savoy operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. She is best remembered for originating the roles of Princess Nekaya in Utopia, Limited, and the Princess of Monte Carlo in The Grand Duke, the last two Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Beginning as a child actress, Owen performed for two decades in comic opera and pantomime, mostly in England, before falling ill and dying at the age of 33.
Florence Perry was an English opera singer and actress best known for her performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Jean Hindmarsh is a retired English singer and actress. She is best known as a principal soprano with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the 1950s and 1960s.
Sylvia Cecil was an English singer and actress. She began her career in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, with whom she performed, off and on, from 1918 until 1937. She also performed in musical theatre, concerts, music hall and variety from 1921, and broadcast on radio. In the 1940s and 1950s she starred in several musicals by Ivor Novello and Noël Coward.
Clara Millington Dow was an English operatic soprano and actress of the early twentieth century. After a concert career, she appeared at the Savoy Theatre in the first repertory seasons of Gilbert and Sullivan operas mounted by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1906–09, under the direction of the author. She is remembered as one of the last principal sopranos personally trained by W. S. Gilbert at the Savoy. In between engagements with D'Oyly Carte, Dow performed in concerts and operetta. After her retirement from the professional stage, she directed amateur productions of the Savoy Operas until she was in her seventies.
Sybil Gordon was an English singer and actress. She is best remembered for her performances in Gilbert and Sullivan roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1926 to 1931. Gordon started out as a concert singer. After her career with the D'Oyly Carte company, she moved to Canada, where she broadcast on the radio. In the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, she is misidentified as the fiancée of Olympic runner Harold Abrahams.
The Mikado is a 1939 British musical comedy film based on Gilbert and Sullivan's 1885 comic opera The Mikado. Shot in Technicolor, the film stars Martyn Green as Ko-Ko, Sydney Granville as Pooh-Bah, the American singer Kenny Baker as Nanki-Poo and Jean Colin as Yum-Yum. Many of the other leads and choristers were or had been members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
Elsie Spain, born Elsie Rickets, was an English opera singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1908 to 1910 and in operettas and Edwardian musical comedies. She was one of the last leading ladies in the Gilbert and Sullivan roles personally trained by W. S. Gilbert. Among her roles in musicals, she originated the part of Princess Mathilde in the long-running The Quaker Girl.
The Mikado is a 1967 British musical film adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan's 1885 comic opera of the same name. The film was directed by Stuart Burge and was a slightly edited adaptation of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's production of The Mikado and used all D'Oyly Carte singers.
Joseph William Herbert was a British-born American director, silent-film actor, singer and dramatist notable for being the first person to play Ko-Ko in America in a pirate production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (1885) before joining D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring companies across America (1885–1890).
Jennifer Gay Bishop, known by her stage name Jennifer Toye, was a British operatic soprano best known for performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the 1950s and 1960s, including as Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance and Yum-Yum in The Mikado. She later performed in musical theatre and opera with other companies.
