Revival

Revived last week in Manhattan was the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Mikado, presented by Milton Aborn's Civic Light Opera Company. Oldtimers in the audience flinched when the curtain rose to reveal a meaningless shadowgraph sequence of Japanese town life, a very un-Gilbertian interpolation. But all was set right again when Howard Marsh stepped out and began to sing "Gentlemen, I pray you tell me."

A note of novelty is supplied by Hizi Koyke, a Japanese, as the opera's Yum-Yum. She is charming, has a good voice, but strangely enough the fact that she is really Japanese adds little to the show, detracts from the pleasant unreality of the doings in the town of Titipu. Librettist Gilbert knew nothing and cared less about things Japanese. The opera suggested itself to him as he gazed at a curved sword on his English study wall.

Although Producer Aborn's troupe is not careful about the authenticity of its production, the revival is on the whole a good one. Further items of the Aborn company's Gilbert & Sullivan repertory will be: H. M. S. Pinafore, The Gondoliers, Patience.

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