Part 1 (of many) . . . . Link to Part 2

On October 31, 1969, this review of the SF Lamplighter’s production of The Mikado ran on page 4 of the Stanford Daily.

The headline reads, Gilbert & Sullivan “Sparkling Show.” The review of the Mikado is without a byline, but it is clear the author loves it and is quite familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and The Mikado in particular. They refer to “typical G and S complications,” and “the inevitable happy ending,” both of which imply a familiarity with the material. The reviewer later refers to “the famous song ‘Let the Punishment Fit the Crime,’” and notes the performer gave the song a “truly diabolical laugh.” The review notes that they can hear all of the lyrics to the songs, something even the D’Oyly Carte company doesn’t always accomplish.

So, this is someone who has seen Gilbert and Sullivan before. Someone who has seen the Mikado before, enough to know the story and highlights, enough to reference D’Oyly Cart company shows. The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan’s Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere.

Now in olden times, The Mikado was performed more than it is now, as were other Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, so there would be some number of people who were familiar with the themes. But seriously, the popularity of 1800s comic opera would not be that large. And of that set of people, there would be an even smaller set who knew The Mikado well, well enough to know which songs were famous and that the Mikado himself performs a “diabolical laugh.” Such people would skew older; there would be very few such people of college age.

I don’t know about 1969, but in the 1980s, not a lot of people I knew were talking about opera, Gilbert and Sullivan and/or The Mikado, especially around colleges. You might even say, no one was. We were talking about Prince, Beastie Boys, and the like. As for 1969? They could talk about The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. But hey, an 1800s comic opera! Sounds groovy. Not.

The longer you think about it, the more you realize it would seem this reviewer was somewhat of a unique individual. In some ways, a remarkably unique individual.

The fact is, there is only a small subset of the population who would know these things about the Mikado, and a VERY small subset who would have seen it multiple times and be able to remark on the production values, and both this reviewer and Zodiac are in that subset. How many college students in 1969 are in that subset is an interesting question. I posit not many.

A final minor but possibly relevant point is the Mikado review in question has no byline, it was written anonymously. Now, this is not singularly unique. A perusal of the reviews in the Daily of this period show perhaps a quarter of them have no byline. But even so, one wonders who this unknown individual so familiar with The Mikado was. If they had just bothered to include a byline, they would have saved us a lot of trouble! As it is, its authorship is unknown.

Link to the Sparkling Mikado Review in the Stanford Daily Archives.

Except from the book, pages 282-283.

Link to Part 2