The Mikado

Published Monday 4 February 2008 at 10:15 by David Gutman

Of the two Mikados in town, ENO’s is ostensibly the less traditional, except that a whole generation has grown up with Jonathan Miller’s staging: this Coliseum staple is now into its 22nd year.

The revival director on this occasion is David Ritch and Miller himself is on hand to take applause on opening night. The original concept wears well save for some over-insistent lighting, no matter that the off-white art deco hotel setting (1920s Brighton rather than Imperial Japan) is no longer groundbreaking or controversial. It’s the would-be ironic cut-glass accenting of selected vowels that begins to grate. Given his vast experience as Ko-Ko, Richard Suart’s portrayal, a grimacing operatic amalgam of Leonard Rossiter and Max Wall, has particular confidence and pace. As always he presents a topically updated little list, hitting out at the house’s own un-mourned production of Kismet as well as the more predictable political targets. Wyn Davies in the pit gives him plenty of space. Elsewhere the verve and sparkle of the show seems compromised by some lack of thrust and a rather small-sounding string section. The new Nanki-Poo is Robert Murray, a suitably English lyric tenor with a vibrant top. Of the serial returnees, Sarah Tynan’s Yum-Yum avoids too much winsomeness; her showpiece aria, The Sun Whose Rays, is taken seriously at a deliberate tempo. Frances McCafferty’s Katisha triumphs through expert acting and comic nous rather than vocal heft. Richard Angas is again the outsize, worldly-wise Mikado, avuncular rather than menacing. Of the smaller parts, Pitti-Sing is winningly taken by the young Swedish mezzo-soprano Anna Grevelius, definitely one to watch.