Spanish version
This recording, apparently by the original cast of a Spanish production from the mid-1980s, is a cultural cousin to Papp's Pirates, with the production company's name—Dagoll Dagom—more prominently featured on the album jacket than Gilbert's or Sullivan's.

Having said that, the recording is extremely faithful to the spirit, if not the letter, of the original. The orchestration is souped up in spots, but it is done with remarkable taste and skill. Those who view any alteration to Sullivan as sacrilege will, of course, object, but I found it tactfully understated and almost never offensive. A couple of the recitatives are completely rewritten and actually manage to improve on Sullivan. Joan Vives conducts a standard Sullivan orchestra, supplemented by a piano and a concertino that are seldom heard. Interestingly, the role of Katisha is played by a man, a fact that completely passed me by until Don Smith called it to my attention.

I don't speak any Spanish and so cannot comment on the translation, except to say that it is syllabically correct in most places and doesn't seem to give the singers any trouble. This is a professional recording, featuring the Spanish equivalent of Broadway singers, and they throw themselves into the material with great enthusiasm. Many of the nuances seem to have been adopted from familiar English-language productions, but the characters add many of their own. A photograph inside of the album jacket suggests it was a very opulent production.

Catalan Version — Review by J. Donald Smith
The audio performance is identical to the Spanish version, except in a different language. The Catalan sounds a bit harsher and more than gutteral than the Spanish but is easy to get used to. Everything you have said about the Spanish recording [above] holds true for the Catalan.

The video is another story. With overture, dialog, and no intermission, the recording of a stage performance takes 140 minutes. The production is not traditional G&S: overacting and over-the-top does not begin to describe it. The audience appears somewhat bemused, and only a few of the usual lines get laughs where they are supposed to. I suspect the problem arises from the lack of chorus (the extra characters in the cast list split some of the roles) — so that almost everyone is on stage for what normally would be chorus numbers. Everyone, except for Katisha, Ko-Ko and the Mikado is on stage for the first scene. The ladies leave, then come back as the train of little ladies. For those not familiar with the original, it must have made no sense. The same problem occurs with every chorus scene — principals are on stage when the action indicates they shouldn't be. It is a very colorful, athletic and sexy production but for only very occasional viewing.

The Text
The recordings are musically complete, except for a large chunk of the overture, the "song of the sea" section of "A Wand'ring Minstrel," and—most curious—"The criminal cried." To give a small idea of the translation, the Spanish and Catalan song names and their English equivalents are given below.