The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1907-06-15

treaties, budgets and other Official pa
pers with which their calling usually
deals, and gravely studied the score
and lbretto of a comic opera.
They read the lines, listened to the
music, and after a serious debate, de-
cided that the comfy now existing be-
tween the great nations Of England
and Japan would not be furthered by
a revival Of Gilbert and Sullivan's
"Mikado" In sLonden
The opera, one of thesgreatest favor
ties of the long line of delightful pro-
auctions by the two masters of the
light musical production, had been
scheduled for revival next month at
the Savoy theater.
Mrs. D'Oyley Carte, widow of the
well known manager OF that name, is
conducting the series of revivals on
scale of unequalled magnifcance, and
she had relied on the popularity of the
'Mikado' to return liberal profit on
the $4,000 she had already spent to
put it back on the boards again.
But the processes Of diplomacy are
far more important than any theatrical
managers plans, and the widow had
no redress when an intimation from a
high English official, speaking with
government authority, suggested that
it would be the part of courtesy to
abandon the revival of an opera that
was not agreeable to England's ally,
the now all-powerful Japan.
So the merry little opera that has
made million laugh, goes back to the
scrap heap without another hearing.
Just how the piece Of work was
managed no one exactly understands
The secretiveness and sensitiveness of
the Japs are well understood. They
would resent having it known that
they took enough interest in the mi
kado' to bother about having it
stopped, yet their extreme satisfaction
over the event is proof positive that
they had some part in it. The proba-
bilities are that that very important
parsonage, the Lord High Chamber
lain, was charged with letting Mrs.
Carte know that the revival would not
be regarded with satisfaction by his
majesty's government. In England
such an apparently mild request is
tantamount to mandate Mrs. Carte
is as reticent as English and Japanese
ofhcialdom, but in London this course
sof proce dure is elisyea to have done
the business. So
The incident is without parallel. In.
stances are not rare, in fact they oc.
cur frequently, of governments inter.
fering with plays or operas that are
regarded as incendiary, disrespectful
to reigning sovereign or prejudicial
to public morals. Thus Verdi had
great difficulty: before he was able to
produce two of his masterpieces, i"The
Masked BALI and "Rigoletto." The
former dealt with the assassination OF
ruler, and before he got it past the
Italian censor, he had to shift the
scene to the United States, and make
the libretto wholly ridiculous.
But this interference, of govern
ment for it's own protection in the
case of serious works that might pro
mote a dangerous revolutionary senti
ment at time when public sentiment
is already inflamed to the danger point
is far different from the present case
Here is an opera which is twenty
two years old. 1t has been sung with
out protest all over the world. Its
purpose is frankly to entertain, and il
was probably the last thought that
ever occurred to Gilbert that his mer.
ry little conceit would ever be a sub.
ject of diplomatic discussion.
When "The Mikado" was written in
1885, Japan was no more reckoned
with as a world power than Afghanis.
tan is now. People of the Occident
classed Japan and China together, and
gave the latter credit of being greater
and stronger.
Nothing was further from the
thoughts of Gilbert than to attempt to
give an accurate picture of conditions
in the land of Nippon. The chances
are that Japan and its people were
subjects on which his ignorance and
his Indifference we're equally com
plete He neither knew or cared any