this form in the 1999 film Topsy-Turvy. But although the 1885–87 Japanese exhibition in Knightsbridge had not opened when Gilbert conceived of The Mikado, European trade with Japan had increased in recent decades, and an English craze for all things Japanese had built through the 1860s and 1870s. This made the time ripe for an opera set in Japan. Gilbert told a journalist, "I cannot give you a good reason for our ... piece being laid in Japan. It ... afforded scope for picturesque treatment, scenery and costume, and I think that the idea of a chief magistrate, who is ... judge and actual executioner in one, and yet would not hurt a worm, may perhaps please the public." In an 1885 interview with the New-York Daily Tribune, Gilbert said that the short stature of Leonora Braham, Jessie Bond and Sybil Grey "suggested the advisability of grouping them as three Japanese school-girls", the opera's "three little maids". He also recounted that a young Japanese lady, a tea server at the Japanese village, came to rehearsals to coach the three little maids in Japanese dance. On 12 February 1885, one month before The Mikado opened, The Illustrated London News wrote about the opening of the Japanese village noting, among other things, that "the graceful, fantastic dancing featured ... three little maids!" In the Tribune interview, Gilbert also related that he and Sullivan had decided to cut the only solo sung by the opera's title character (who appears only in Act II, played by Savoy veteran Richard Temple), but that members of the company and others who had witnessed the dress rehearsal "came to us in a body and begged us to restore the excised 'number'". Roles The Mikado of Japan (bass or bass-baritone) Nanki-Poo, His Son, disguised as a wandering minstrel and in love with Yum-Yum (tenor) Ko-Ko, The Lord High Executioner of Titipu (comic baritone) Pooh-Bah, Lord High Everything Else (baritone) Pish-Tush, A Noble Lord (baritone) Go-To, A Noble Lord (bass-baritone) Yum-Yum, A Ward of Ko-Ko, also engaged to Ko-Ko (soprano) Pitti-Sing, A Ward of Ko-Ko (mezzo-soprano) Peep-Bo, A Ward of Ko-Ko (soprano or mezzo-soprano) Katisha, An Elderly lady, in love with Nanki-Poo (contralto) Chorus of School-Girls, Nobles, Guards and Coolies Synopsis Act I Courtyard of Ko-Ko's Official Residence Gentlemen of the fictitious Japanese town of Titipu are gathered ("If you want to know who we are"). A handsome but