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David Arnsperger as Sweeney Todd and Janis Kelly who excels as Mrs Lovett. Pictures: Johan Persson Sweeney Todd
Welsh National Opera
Birmingham Hippodrome
***** THE moral of the tale is don’t buy meat
pies from anywhere remotely near a barber’s shop. Urban legend is full of
tales of takeaways and restaurants with a penchant for serving up cat or
dog as beef, pork or whatever it says on the menu; Dickens referred to
such establishments several times and in 1846, in
A string of Pearls,
a serialised tale in Victorian penny dreadful,
The People's Periodical and Family Library,
the legend of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, was born. Jump forward to 1979 and Stephen Sondheim turned
the tale of the close shave serial killer cum pieman not only into a
musical but gave Todd a backstory to explain how he was driven by grief
and revenge when, as Benjamin Barker, he was transported to Australia on
trumped up charges by a judge who wanted his wicked way with the
barber’s wife. His wife, he is told, killed herself after being
raped by the judge, which gave his lordship a double dollop of revenge
coming his way. Of all Sondheim’s many
musicals this is the nearest to opera, with less than a quarter of the
production, with book by Hugh Wheeler, spoken, although the music and
lyrics are unquestion So it is perhaps the ideal vehicle for Welsh
National Opera to dip their toe into the world of musicals for the first
time, and what a fine job they have made of it. Soraya Mafi as Sweeney Todd’s
daughter, and Judge Turpin’s ward, Johanna. WNO go for big productions, with big, larger than
life sets and this is no exception with Todd’s barber’s shop a shipping
container stacked on another which constitutes the bake house where
clients are . . . serviced; three times to make them sweeter. One pull
of the lever in his chair and down they go. Two more containers which slide in and out, and
like Todd’s short back and slides emporium, with opening ends and walls,
provide the Judge’s house where Todd’s daughter Johanna had become the
Judge’s ward – and was in danger of becoming another notch on the
Judge’s lecherous bedpost as she grows into womanhood. It is a very clever set
from Colin Richmond and director James Brining has moved the setting
from 1846 to somewhere the 1970s with Mrs Lovett’s pie shop a sort of
run down burger bar selling The Worst
Pies in London. Angela Lansbury won a Tony for best actress in a
musical as Mrs Lovett in the original Broadway production and it is easy
to see why, it is a marvellous part and here Janis Kelly steals the show
not only with a splendid soprano voice but also some glorious comic
timing. It really is a magnificent performance bringing the character to
vivid life. You could have forgiven her anything by the end . . . but
you would still have passed on the pies. David Arnsperger is a less likeable character as
Todd. You can sympathise with his predicament but this is a bloke so
consumed by revenge it has eaten away his humanity. Arnsperger’s
background is in both musical theatre and opera in his native Germany,
and is making his debut with WNO displaying a fine baritone voice and a
nice touch of black humour as he sings thoughtfully as he despatches his
customers. Steven Page is a
thoroughly unlikeable Judge Turpin with a nice deep voice and wonderful
portrayal of a blast from the past Victorian melodrama baddie. We even
have him
His henchman Beadle
Bamford is sung by Aled Hall in a sort of enforcer role, although he
does soften a little with a singalong on Mrs Lovett’s harmonium with
Sweet Polly Plunkett
and an amusing The Tower of Bray.
One hopes he makes pies less tough than
he appears to be. Steven Page as Judge Turpin and Aled
Hall as Beadle Bamford The link between all of them is Johanna Barker,
daughter of Todd and ward – and desire – of the Judge and sung
beautifully by Lancastrian Soraya Mafi. Then we have Anthony Hope, a sailor who rescued
Todd from a shipwreck on his way home, and who muddies the waters even
more by falling in love with Johanna and wanting to run away with her –
which gives him the worst two enemies he could imagine, Todd and the
Judge. Sung in a fine voice by Jamie Muscato, he is another with a
musical theatre background rather than opera. Among the supporting characters we have flashy
Italian barber Pirelli, selling a miraculous hair restorer, who arrives
in a Reliant Robin with a nice homage to Del Boy as he leaves. A
dramatic tenor who could happily find a job advertising insurance,
Pirelli is sung by Paul Charles Clarke and we discover the snake oil
salesman is as Italian as the Liver birds when he tries to blackmail
Todd. Not a wise move; it leads to new careers for both
of them, Todd’s starter for 10 as a mass murderer and Pirelli as a pie
filling. Then there is Tobias Ragg, sung by George Ure,
making his debut with WNO after a career in theatre. Toby is the simple
gofer for Pirelli, taken in by Mrs Lovett when his boss disappears, and
outside in the cold and dark, drifting in and out of the unfolding tale
is the bag lady, begging her way through London asking first for money
and then offering her highly dubious sexual favours with more enthusiasm
than eroticism. She is a wretched old bundle of rags, sadly only
knitting with one needle, scorned by everyone yet with a terrible secret
that could have changed the course of the whole tale; she is played and
sung with a touching air of desperation and desolation by Charlotte
Page. They are supported by the usual excellent WNO
chorus who delight in representing Bedlam on stage as the audience
enter, a preview of a later scene when Anthony enters the infamous
mental institution to rescue the incarcerated Johanna. And of course the WNO Orchestra were enjoying
themselves immensely playing a musical theatre inspired rather than
opera score, under conductor James Southall. WNO are not the first opera company to take on
Sweeney Todd, Houston Grand Opera first staged it in 1984 and it was
strange to see a WNO production with talking and no surtitles but as a
performance it brought opera and musical theatre together in a wonderful
piece of theatre that is well worth seeing. To 21-11-15 Roger Clarke
19-11-15
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ably
Sondheim, a style we have seen develop since his first break as the
lyricist for 
flagellating
himself along to