By Heidi Waleson [WSJ, 12 January 2011]

The trick to presenting a very familiar work like Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado" (1885) is to make the audience see and hear it as if for the first time. Lyric Opera of Chicago accomplishes that with its new production. The stage director, Gary Griffin, the associate artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and the conductor, Andrew Davis, the music director of Lyric Opera, take this comic masterpiece seriously, casting it with real voices and banning all mugging.