["The Star-Spangled Banner"]
Good evening and welcome to our new season of Sunday Stereo Special,
simulcast on ABC FM and ABC Television. I'll be here for the next five weeks to
introduce the series and tonight we begin with the first of our three ESO
nights at the Opera, the Australian Opera's production of the Macado. There
occurred in the latter part of the 19th century an extraordinary craze for all
things Japanese. In London the impact of the simplicity of Japanese forms in the
midst of high Victorian over-decoration was startling and this passion for the
Orient was to provide an obvious and sure target for W.S. Gilbert's delight in
the absurd. In fact, according to Gilbert, the idea of writing the Macado was born
when a Japanese executioner's sword fell from the wall of his study. But apart
from the setting, what has the Macado to do with Japan? Well, as G.K. Chesterton
pointed out, I doubt whether there's a single joke in the whole play which fits
the Japanese, but all the jokes in the play fit the English. Arthur Sullivan's
music, despite the odd passing reference to Japanese themes, is firmly embedded in
the English musical tradition and as for Gilbert's satire, it is aimed squarely at
the English. In the Macado he was not merely satirizing the English craze for
things Japanese, but was also making clever use of oriental disguise to
uncover the foibles and the failings of the British character. The Macado is one
of Gilbert and Sullivan's most popular light operas and although its topicality
has waned, it remains an enchanting piece. Viewers used to the traditional
doily-cart production in which gesture, inflection and stage position were
preserved in a kind of theatrical formaldehyde may be a little taken aback
by this cheeky production by Christopher Renshaw. It's a witty blend of
Knightsbridge and Kyoto. The designer Tim Goodchild has created brilliant
costumes and a set representing an English mantelpiece where Japanese
bric-a-brac and Victorian jubilee mementos live side by side. This
production has been hailed both here and in England as a fresh and lively
approach to a piece whose very familiarity can be a negative factor in
appreciating the work in performance. In tonight's Australian Opera production
we have Peter Cousins as Nanki Poo, Anne Marie Macdonald as Yum Yum, Graham Ewer as
Coco the Lord High Executioner, Gregory Yurisich is Poo Bar the Lord High
Everything Else and that splendid mezzo Heather Begg, a great favorite with
Australian opera audiences, is the formidable Katyshaw, a lady who in her
own words is tough as a bone with a will of her own. The Elizabethan Sydney
Orchestra is conducted by Andrew Green.