{"id":538,"date":"2007-06-12T11:20:59","date_gmt":"2007-06-12T17:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/2007\/06\/12\/what-i-did-this-weekend\/"},"modified":"2007-06-12T11:21:03","modified_gmt":"2007-06-12T17:21:03","slug":"what-i-did-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/2007\/06\/what-i-did-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"What I did this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette;\tDate: Jun 12, 2007;\tSection:Style; Page Number:29<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

REVIEW Music
\nMikado performers are a delight
\nBY ERIC E. HARRISON ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE<\/p>\n

HOT SPRINGS \u2014 A more enjoyable Mikado never did in the Spa City exist, and not just because this was the Hot Springs Music Festival\u2019s first venture into Gilbert & Sullivan.<\/p>\n

Artistic director and conductor Richard Rosenberg assembled a quality concert performance with a top-notch collection of singer-actors, a fine chorus and a serviceable young orchestra Sunday night at the Hot Springs Youth Center, aka the old high school field house.<\/p>\n

Keith Jurosko of the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players made a triumphant return to Hot Springs after his success as the evil magician in Cole Porter\u2019s Aladdin last summer.<\/p>\n

He was entirely in his element, as Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner of the Japanese town of Titipu, and also as director (creating some charming bits of limited staging) and script doctor (infusing some topical and\/or local references into W.S. Gilbert\u2019s 120-year-old libretto). A pair of paper Japanese kissing fish provided a little bit of mood enhancement as a sort of quasiproscenium arch.<\/p>\n

Victor Khodadad was a vibrant Nanki-Poo, the emperor\u2019s son disguised as a wandering minstrel to capture the love of soprano Daleen Davidson\u2019s excellent Yum-Yum. Denise Edds was delightful as Yum-Yum\u2019s second banana, Pitti-Sing.<\/p>\n

Joe Carl White was hilarious stepping up into the role of officious official Pooh-Bah, while Scott L. Beasley did a fine job as a late replacement as sidekick Pish-Tush. William Fulton gave a nicely whimsical performance in the title role. Top honors, however, go to Diane Kesling, who was superbly over the top as the harridan Katishaw.<\/p>\n

The chorus \u201cof schoolgirls, nobles, guards and coolies\u201d was in good voice and diction. The orchestra, mostly young players (without \u201cmentors\u201d in the string section), seemed a little lackluster in the overture (only the bass drummer seemed to show much snap) but otherwise executed Sir Arthur Sullivan\u2019s score well.<\/p>\n

It may sound heretical, but at a performing length of more than two hours and 45 minutes (including a half-hour intermission), a couple of judicious cuts in the libretto might have been in order.<\/p>\n

The festival continues through Saturday at various venues around Hot Springs. For additional information, call (501) 623-4763.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette; Date: Jun 12, 2007; Section:Style; Page Number:29 REVIEW Music Mikado performers are a delight BY ERIC E. HARRISON ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE HOT SPRINGS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":647,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pekNN-8G","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joewhite.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}