Programme cover from the Auckland Operatic Society (Inc) production of “The Mikado” at His Majesty’s Theatre in June 1962.
In the programme for the Auckland Operatic Society production of “The Mikado” in 1962, the producer John N. Thompson discussed the fact that copyright on the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas had lapsed. He states ‘in approximately 1960 half a million signatures supported a petition to the British Parliament to waive the law of copyright and pass an Act to ensure that the works of Gilbert and Sullivan remained permanently under the control of a private company. Great though the interest and support were, the petition failed, and it remains to be seen whether the traditional presentations will give way to experiment and innovation so that they will spoil the intention of the author and composer’. He carries on by saying ‘character interpretation will undoubtedly differ, different dramatic possibilities will be explored and emphasis placed to a differing degree upon the musical, spoken and visual balance and such differences should stimulate us enormously’. At the end he reassures that this production will not greatly differ from previous productions of “The Mikado”.
In the Hamilton Operatic Society’s 1991 programme for the Pirates of the Penzance the point is made that there is no known photograph of Gilbert and Sullivan together.
The following is the programme from the 1957 Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Season.
By Schwede66 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42659152