'Quite au Sérieux': The Mikado Debate
'Quite au Sérieux'
The Mikado debate as revealed in The Musical World's 'A Japanese View of the Mikado' (1886)
From the moment that librettist
W. S. Gilbert decided to set his new operetta in Japan, ‘The Mikado’ has been
controversial for its depiction of racial identity. Two strains of criticism
define the discourse around the opera: one camp marks it as an expression of Victorian
fascination with Japan, and therefore as an attempt at accurate representation.
The other recognises the problematic aspect of this, especially in the light of
the opera’s inaccuracies, and insists that ‘The Mikado’ is certainly not
about Japan. In the words of Grace
Lavery, the idea that it is strictly a pastiche of Britain ‘reassures enthusiasts of the popular work
that nobody is calling them racist.’[1]
A letter reprinted in The Musical World upon ‘The Mikado’s 1886 opening
in Hamburg provides a previously absent but essential perspective in this early
debate: the opinion of a Japanese audience member.
The only biographical
details the author provides are that he is ‘the only Japanese here in Hamberg,’
having lived there for two months, and that he intends to provide an answer ‘to
the question whether the piece and the dresses are true to nature and
historical fact or not.’[2]
The uniqueness of this letter is suggested by its introduction as a ‘novel and
interesting view of the Mikado,’ and by the author’s assertion that there
are many Europeans ‘who not only do not know Japan, but are even less
acquainted with its manners and customs.’ Despite therefore evidently providing
a rare perspective, The Musical World qualifies that ‘our Japanese
friend takes Gilbert and Sullivan’s whimsical production quite au Sérieux.’ This disclaimer, however
inadvertently, works to shield the opera from critique by establishing it as a
subjective authority, a common trend in Victorian literature about Japan where
authors would ‘both project authority and wish not to be taken seriously.’[3]
Other early articles in The Musical World are similarly defensive when
approaching the Japanese aspects of ‘The Mikado’. One reviewer writes that the
actresses ‘had to counterfeit the gait and bearing of their Japanese sisters,
and did so piquantly, if – as may have been the case for aught we know – not
very precisely.’[4]
His ‘for aught we know’ disclaimer circumvents the accuracy problem by
proclaiming a lack of understanding about Japan. This has echoes of Lafcadio
Hearn’s disclaimer to his Attempt at Interpretation that ‘no work fully
interpreting [Japanese] life... can be written for at least another fifty years.’[5]
It seems the more Victorian critics write about Japan, the less they often
claim to know. ‘The Mikado’ itself utilizes this defense, both asserting truths
about Japan and retracting them when pushed; as Lavery writes, it’s able to ‘smile,
gauge an audience’s reaction, and hurriedly add ‘just kidding’ should it be
necessary to do so.’[6]
The
arrival of this letter into a debate which claims complete ignorance about
Japan problematizes the critical assertion of ‘The Mikado’ as a subjective authority.
The author takes an educational approach, providing constructive advice on how
to improve the opera’s accuracy, thus demonstrating his assessment of it as an
objective work. He fears that it may be viewed as accurate, suggesting a
cultural understanding of ‘The Mikado’ as a reliable depiction of Japan. Certainly,
early advertising capitalized on the production’s ‘accuracy’, with one American
playbill highlighting its ‘real antique Japanese costumes.’[7]
It is therefore understandable that
the author recounts believing ‘The Mikado’ was a ‘Japanese opera’ from Tokyo
before seeing it. This mistake shows the emphasis on Japan in the
production’s marketing; it was certainly not advertised as a British satire. In
fact, the opinion that ‘The Mikado’ is ‘not about Japan’ became popular
fifty years after the opera’s debut, when G. K. Chesterton asserted it contained
‘not a single joke against Japan,’ in response to its brief censorship
following the Russo-Japanese War.[8]
Audiences before this likely would have accepted ‘The Mikado’ as an educational
authority on Japan. As Josephine Lee writes, it matters little whether its
depiction was intended to be accurate, as ‘for countless people who had never
been to Japan, [...] The Mikado served as the basis of knowledge of what ‘Japanese’
meant.’[9]
This
‘basis of knowledge’, our author writes, ‘contains many and great errors.’ Some
are simple mistakes, such as the actresses ‘who were not quite clear about the
correct draping or the folds of their dresses.’ Other issues are opinion-based:
the women who he feels ‘laugh too loud, and in laughing open their mouths too
widely,’ and Nanki-Poo, who ‘kisses the young girls too much.’ But other errors
expose Victorian misunderstandings of Japan, such as ‘the names Nanki-Poo,
Ko-Ko, Pooh-Bah &c.,’ which ‘have more of a resemblance with the Chinese.’
Elsewhere W. S. Gilbert’s direction confuses nationalities, as the chorus
‘salute each other by kneeling. [...] Such a manner of saluting does not exist
in Japan at all, but rather in China.’ This inaccuracy reflects the Victorian
tendency to group East Asian identities into the singular designation ‘Orientals’
or ‘Asiatics,’ as criticized in Basil Hall Chamberlain’s Japanese Things.[10]
Despite Gilbert’s insistence on verisimilitude, sourcing replicas and 200-year
old dresses, our author finds the costumes to have ‘a most comical effect.’[11]
The Mikado, for example, is dressed more like ‘a priest of Sintoiste (a
particular religious community) than that of a Japanese Emperor.’ While many ‘embroideries
are real and are made in Japan, they are used more for bed clothes and wall
decorations than for dresses.’ This error is significant when considered
alongside Anne McClintock’s theory of ‘commodity racism.’[12]
The opera opens with ‘Japanese nobles discovered standing and sitting in
attitudes suggested by native drawings,’ a scene associated with vases and
wall-hangings rather than reality.[13]
Japan, in the opera, has a solely decorative function, capitalizing on the
Victorian appetite for Japanese aesthetics. Reviewers celebrated ‘the Japanese
gowns, with their delicate tints, [which] lent not a little aid to the oddly pleasing
effect.’[14]
Within this aestheticized setting, the actresses in yellowface take on a
problematically erotic role, with many reviewers delighting in the ‘pretty
Japanese girls.’[15] Our
author is no exception to this, stating that ‘the young girls in general have
imitated the Japanese very well, and what is the main point, they look very
charming.’ The ‘main point’ of these actresses is their beauty. Japanese
identity, in Victorian England is reduced to a handful of pretty, decorative objects:
fans, vases, wall-hangings and dresses.
Our
author is not particularly offended by this aestheticization or these
inaccuracies, noting instead that most of the errors have a ‘comical effect to
a native Japanese.’ He delights in his fuller knowledge of the opera,
commenting for instance that ‘people would be very astonished, and the
listeners would blush, if a true translation of the song [Miya Sama] were
given.’ The song in question accompanies the Mikado’s entrance despite being distinctly
anti-authoritarian; it was associated with ‘the great revolution in Japan in
1866,’ and ‘[the police] would punish every Japanese who sang it.’ Other
Japanese audiences may have received ‘The Mikado’ in a similar fashion to this author,
as when it was first performed in Japan, many ‘laughed heartily at the
performance, but whether their mirth was due to a genuine appreciation of the
fun of the play or was provided by ludicrous inaccuracies in the representation
of themselves and their ways it would be impossible to say.’[16]
This letter’s tendency to laugh at the opera’s errors can therefore be taken as
an example of how many early Japanese audience members may have received ‘The
Mikado’ when engaging with a debate which tends silence them.
This
letter provides huge insight into the early reception of ‘The Mikado’, before
the critical opinion of it as ‘not about Japan’ gained popularity. It stands as a testament to the
misunderstandings and oversimplifications that defined Victorian beliefs about
Japan, with the author’s factual approach to the opera proving that ‘The
Mikado’ was an educational authority for many Europeans. This letter therefore suggests
that ‘The Mikado’, though partly functioning as a satirical commentary on
British society, should also be critiqued for its aestheticization and commodity
racism, as a depiction of Japan.
References
[1] Grace Lavery, Quaint, Exquisite: Victorian Aesthetics and the Idea of Japan (Princeton University Press, 2019), p.34.
[2] ‘A Japanese View of the Mikado’, The Musical World, 64.38 (September 18, 1886), p.605. All further references are to this article and page number.
[3] Lavery, p.35.
[4] J.B., ‘The Mikado, Savoy Theatre’, The Musical World, 63.12 (March 21, 1885), 185-187 (p.187).
[5] Lafcadio Hearn, Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (Macmillan, 1913), p.10.
[6] Lavery, p.48.
[7] Diana Bell, The Complete Gilbert and Sullivan (Quarto, 1989), p.150.
[8] G. K. Chesterton, ‘Gilbert and Sullivan’, in The Eighteen Eighties, ed. by Walter De la Mare (Cambridge University Press, 1930), pp.136–58.
[9] Josephine Lee, The Japan of Pure Invention (University of Minnesota Press, 2010), p.viii.
[10] Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1891), p.4.
[11] Bell, p.148.
[12] Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context (Routledge, 1995), p.209.
[13] Lee, p.5.
[14] Moy Thomas, ‘Gilbert and Sullivan’s New Opera’, The Musical World, 63.12 (March 21, 1885), p.185.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Lavery, p.42.
Comments
Post a Comment