Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado; or, The…

Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, will run for six hundred and seventy-two performances, which is the second longest run for any work of musical theater and one of the longest runs of any theater piece up to this time.

The comic opera opens at the Savoy Theatre in London on March 14, 1885; at least one hundred fifty companies in Europe and America wll be estimated to be producing the opera.

The Mikado remains the most frequently performed Savoy Opera, and it is especially popular with amateur and school productions.

The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theater pieces in history.

Setting the opera in Japan, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allows Gilbert to satirize British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese.

Gilbert uses foreign or fictional locales in several operas, including The Mikado, Princess Ida, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited and The Grand Duke, to soften the impact of his pointed satire of British institutions.