Laurelyn Watson & Stephen Quint. Photo by Carol Rosegg

On January 7, the second night of their season at City Center, the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players offered a fine rendition of William S. Gilbert and Arthur S. Sullivan’s popular operetta The Mikado (1885), under the baton of Artistic Director Albert Bergeret.

Heading the cast was Stephen Quint, a proper nebbish of a Ko-Ko, timid Lord High Executioner, who, topically, numbered among the dispensable, his potential victims, “kids who claim McDonald’s made them fat;” “spammers on the internet, polluting cyberspace;” and “that Hilton Hotel heiress” and “bimbo.” Soon after his entrance solos, Quint incorporated impersonations of two Marx Brothers, Groucho and Harpo, into one line of dialogue—and pertinently so, as Groucho did play Ko-Ko in an abridged televised Mikado. The baritone capped his portrayal with a touching account of the consequences of love unrequited in “Willow, tit-willow.” To save his own neck, he wooed the formidable Katisha of Dianna Dollman, who sang in full dramatic Verdian tone, commanding the stage with her furious entrance during the first act finale and with her lament “Alone, and yet alive!” Quint and Dollman made their duet, “There is beauty in the bellow of the blast,” confirming their common purpose, one of the evening’s sparkling highlights.

As a Mikado of Japan of consummate hauteur, Keith Jurosko got laughs as he knowingly mouthed, along with Dollman, playing his then “daughter-in-law elect,” her reiteration, no doubt frequent, of her rarified virtues. In his laundry list of crimes and fitting punishments, in “A more humane Mikado,” he included “the amateur tenor” whom he would force to sing castrato strains “in the original key;” “idiots who bring cellular phones into these hallowed halls,” condemned to hanging by most delicate parts of their anatomies; “the gangsta rapper,” doomed to a diet of “Bach and Beethoven;” and the televangelist, sentenced “to life with Tammy Faye.” He was then presented with legal documentation of an execution witnessed by such dignitaries as “Lord Mayor Bloomberg,” Princes Charles, William, and Harry, and “the artist formerly known as Prince.”

Michael Scott Harris, as Nanki-Poo, the Mikado’s son, traveling incognito in “shreds and patches,” presented himself, sensitively and expressively, in “A wand’ring minstrel I.” Laurelyn Watson, as his love, Yum-Yum, lent a lovely lyric soprano to her romanza, “The sun, whose rays are all ablaze.” The pair flirted with capital punishment as they flirted endearingly in “Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted.” Harris, Watson and Quint’s “Here’s a how-de-do!” and its increasingly speedy encores, punctuated by sillier and sillier high jinks, was another bright spot in the performance.

Louis Dall’Ava, as a marvelously buffo Lord Pooh-Bah, who counted, here, among his numerous titles “Secretary of Homeland Security,” resisted sociability by insisting he was “not in the habit of saying ‘How de do, little girls, how de do?’ to anybody under the rank of Fear Factor finalist.” Kudos to Dall’Ava, Quint, and Edward Prostak, as Lord Pish-Tush, for their operatic trio, “I am so proud,” and the tongue twisting patter of its stretta, “To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock.”

Bergeret, the soloists and the ensemble brought all the operatic grandeur of Fidelio, Il Trovatore or one of the bel canto works to the multi-part finale of Act One. The maestro elicited a precise, breathtaking madrigal, “Brightly dawns our wedding day,” from Watson, Melissa Attebury as Pitti-Sing, Harris, and Prostak, and glee, “See how the fates their gifts allot,” from Jurosko, Attebury, Dall’Ava, Quint, and Dollman.

Completing the cast were Robin Bartunek, as Peep-Bo, and, in a cameo appearance, fifth grader Maggie Rosenberg, Quint’s daughter, carrying with ease a huge axe, which threw her father off balance.

The Mikado alternates in repertory with H.M.S. Pinafore through January 15.

Keith Jurosko & Louis Dall’Ava. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

The Mikado January 7^th & 13^th at 8 p.m., 8^th at 3 p.m., 10^th at 7 p.m. & 14^th at 1 p.m.

H.M.S. Pinafore January 6^th & 14^th at 8 p.m., 7^th at 2 p.m. & 15^th at 3 p.m.

Quintessential G&S, including Trial by Jury, January 12^th at 8 p.m.

New York City Center, West 55^th St between 6^th & 7 ^th Aves