*GILBERT & SULLIVAN: 1885 MIKADO THREE MAIDS COLOR TRADE CARD*

Description

A rare original 1885 Gilbert and Sullivan Mikado Three Little Maids color trade card.  Dimensions six by three and a half inches. Light wear and missing top corner otherwise good.  See the story of The Mikado below.
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From Wikipedia:
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu
is a
comic opera
in two acts, with music by
Arthur Sullivan
and
libretto
by
W. S. Gilbert
, their ninth of fourteen
operatic collaborations
. It opened on 14 March 1885, in
London
, where it ran at the
Savoy Theatre
for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time.
[1]
[n 1]
By the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera.
[2]
The Mikado
remains the most frequently performed
Savoy Opera
, and is especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and is one of the most frequently played musical theatre pieces in history.
Setting the opera in
Japan
, an exotic locale far away from Britain, allowed Gilbert to satirise British politics and institutions more freely by disguising them as Japanese. Gilbert used foreign or fictional locales in several operas, including
The Mikado
,
Princess Ida
,
The Gondoliers
,
Utopia, Limited
and
The Grand Duke
, to soften the impact of his pointed satire of British institutions.