‘Outsize’ Is the Word for Opera Pacific’s ‘Mikado’

Although one orders sushi in a London restaurant at one’s own risk, the British do have a way with things Japanese.

And in this most improbable week--while the Los Angeles Philharmonic is exploring the exquisitely fragile music of Toru Takemitsu under the careful guidance of the bearlike British guest conductor Oliver Knussen--Opera Pacific opened its new season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center Tuesday night with that most transcendentally preposterous of all British Japanesery, “The Mikado.”

“The Mikado,” as everyone knows, is not satire of the Japanese but a parody of the absurdities of the British themselves, bulls in a porcelain shop, so to speak. Written in 1885, when Japanese goods were all the rage of Knightsbridge decorators, Gilbert and Sullivan struck upon the ingenious idea of deflating upper-class British pomposity by anglicizing Japan.

The result was not only their most popular operetta, but the one that, by extending the British outside themselves, traveled best. And with it a worldwide craze for British humor was created, filled in modern times by the likes of the “Goon Show,” “Beyond the Fringe” and Monty Python.

Meanwhile, it was “The Mikado” that more recently renewed the opera world’s interest in Gilbert and Sullivan. In the early 1980s, a young Peter Sellars came along with a shockingly modern update for Chicago Lyric Opera. And Jonathan Miller made his hilariously inspired flapper “Mikado” for English National Opera and L.A. Opera.

Another of the attention-getting opera-house “Mikados” of the last decade was a centennial production staged by Christopher Renshaw for Australian Opera, and it is this one that Opera Pacific chose for its first foray into Gilbert and Sullivan. It treats the bull-in-the-china-shop notion literally, as characters pop in and out of large ginger jars. It deflates by inflating. Apparently taking its cue from a fad for oversized objects, the stage is ascatter with monumental chopsticks and fans.

“Outsize” characterizes just about everything in the production. Set designer Tim Goodchild continues the theme of garish combinations of British and Japanese bad taste in his costumes--tartan kimonos, samurai tights and spats, and the like. And the style of the production, entrusted to director Stuart Maunder, continues this intentional tastelessness as well, every number being choreographed with about five too many bad jokes and clumsy vaudeville cliches.

There are few enlivening moments and many awkward ones, where cast and chorus appear struggling to remember cues. And did no one notice that the occasional updated jokes--parodying Democrats but not Republicans, adding mass-transit builders to the Mikado’s execution list--are examples of just the kind of elitism that opera houses are presumably trying to overcome by including lighter works in their repertory? These are the very attitudes, moreover, this operetta skewers.

All of which is too bad, because the cast is talented. Greg Fedderly and Barbara Shirvis, the Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum, are fresh, young, vocally exciting, amusing actors and light up the stage. Strong entertaining performances, too, are contributed by Bill Parcher (Pooh-Bah), Sandra Walker (Katisha), John Stephens(the Mikado), Teresa Brown (Pitti-Sing) and Susan Holsonbake (Peep-Bo). All are Americans yet all are convincing in accent and manner. Better still, all appear hard-working, rarely allowing the excessive stage business to interfere with exceptionally fine ensemble singing.

Tony Tanner (Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner) is the one British import. And his mannerisms, part West End musical comedy, part Goon Show, may be an acquired taste, but he is, at least, lively. He might watch the conductor more, though, since Stewart Robertson leads a remarkably tight (if occasionally slow) performance with unusual attention paid to the orchestral detail.

There are two further unusual aspects to this “Mikado.” One is that it is amplified (rather more for speaking and less for singing) and amplified extremely well. The other is that the company doesn’t trust its sensitive amplification, to say nothing of the generally superb diction of the singers or even all that overdone stage business that drums every point in with a hammer. It gilds this lily with supertitles, flashing by with incredible, and incredibly distracting, speed.

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* “The Mikado,” Opera Pacific, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Towne Center Drive, Costa Mesa, today and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. $28-$93. (800) 346-7372.