Sweeney Todd

If you think operas are slow and inaccessible yet find musicals too corny and sickly sweet, than maybe what’s left for you is Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. This operatic musical is dark, fast and compelling -“ and has heaps of laughs and dramatic tunes.

Sweeney Todd was that famous Fleet Street barber who slit the throats of his customers and then whisked them downstairs to be made into tasty pies enjoyed throughout London.

Sondheim thought this macabre myth could serve his ambition to compose a musical almost without spoken words. And he’s no stranger to dark and droll subjects. Sondheim has made landmark musicals about bloodthirsty fairy tales, US political assassins, imperialism and failed modern love affairs.

His musical of Sweeney Todd premiered more than 25 years ago but this revived, award-winning Opera Australia production delivers a musical more thrilling and freshly sardonic than most written since.

Peter England’s oppressive early industrial set, inspired by the silent movie Metropolis, captures the brutality of Todd’s Dickensian London. Centre stage, housing the barber and basement pie shop, is a revolve shaped liked one of those metal meat grinders your granny used to have.

Todd returns to this world from Australia, bent on revenge against the corrupt judge who had him transported and who ravaged his wife. Mrs Lovett, whose pie shop isn’t doing well, harbours a long crush for Todd and has kept his razors sharp.

Todd’s obsession for revenge against an unjust world soon nicely dovetails with her more devilish inspiration on how to improve business.

Operas and musicals are rarely blessed with performers who can commandingly both sing and act, let alone play together comedy and murderous emotions. This Sweeney Todd delivers all in the leading couple.

Peter Coleman-Wright, even when poised with razor in hand, makes us wish for his success. But he is at his finest next to the marvel of Judi Connelli’s coquettish and irresistibly amoral Mrs Lovett. Connelli, who won the top cabaret award this month from Sydney’s theatre reviewers, is here a remarkable star.

Musically Sweeney Todd is refreshingly complex with songs, dances, near-arias, comic numbers, ensembles and symphonic sections, deliciously playing with moods from sweet romance to maudlin cynicism. Sondheim’s machine-gun lyrics also add a complexity of character and commentary rarely heard in any opera.

Director Gale Edwards serves well the vigorous demands of this fast-paced work, punctuated by an urgent chorus. Do yourself a musical favour.

Sweeney Todd is at the Sydney Opera House until 1 March.