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Groucho Marx Mikado Release Date: 1960 Label: DRG Rating:

Gilbert & Sullivan's comic opera +The Mikado has delighted audiences for over a century and is easily more accessible to novice listeners than the considerably more heavyweight works by the masters of the art form. During the 1950s, someone at NBC-TV had the idea to adapt the piece in edited form for the Bell Telephone Hour, with comic Groucho Marx as Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, the remainder of the cast features legitimate opera singers. Donald Voorhees conducts the Bell Telephone Orchestra with the Norman Luboff Choir providing the backing chorus. While one might expect Marx to make a leering Ko-Ko, he is actually quite tame and plays the comic role without excess, and without much vocal range. Unfortunately, Martyn Green's condensed version of +The Mikado (reduced from its normal two hours to around 50 minutes) loses a lot in the process, and this version ends up excessively talky. This long-unavailable LP may be a historical curiosity that will attract the attention of fans of Groucho Marx, but Gilbert & Sullivan fans will likely seek the real deal instead of this pretender. Ken Dryden, All Music Guide

Tracks:

	Title	Composer	Time
1	Mikado/Overture	Sullivan	2:28
2	Mikado/If You Want to Know Who We Are	Sullivan	1:04
3	Mikado/A Wand'ring Minstrel, I	Sullivan	3:45
4	Mikado/Behold the Lord High Executioner	Sullivan	0:59
5	Mikado/As Some Day It May Happen	Sullivan	3:39
6	Mikado/Comes a Train of Little Ladies	Sullivan	0:29
7	Mikado/Three Little Maids	Sullivan	2:46
8	Mikado/Were You Not to Ko-Ko Plighted	Sullivan	4:27
9	Mikado/With Aspect Stern	Sullivan	2:51
10	Mikado/Braid the Raven Hair	Sullivan	3:02
11	Mikado/The Sun Whose Rays Are All Ablaze	Sullivan	3:56
12	Mikado/Here's a How-De-Do!	Sullivan	2:30
13	Mikado/Miya Sama	Sullivan	1:43
14	Mikado/A More Humane Mikado	Sullivan	2:38
15	Mikado/The Criminal Cried	Sullivan	4:42
16	Mikado/The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring	Sullivan	1:39
17	Mikado/Alone, And Yet Alive	Sullivan	3:18
18	Mikado/Willow, Tit-Willow	Sullivan	3:01
19	Mikado/There Is Beauty	Sullivan	3:08
20	Mikado/For He's Gone and Married Yum-Yum	Sullivan	1:43

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