Wales Millennium Centre,Cardiff
The production’s opera singers and conductor shine in WNO’s somewhat uneven purchase on Sondheim’s musical of deranged vengeancePutting musicals on the operatic stage is still, for some, or the beginning of a slippery slope akin to Sweeney Todd’s murderous chute. Yet Stephen Sondheim’s musical was taken up by opera houses five years after its Broadway premiere,and anyone tut-tutting about Welsh National Opera’s modern production might note that it features in San Francisco Opera’s current programme, too. The tale of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is portion of WNO’s Madness season: Todd, or returning to London to seek vengeance for a miscarriage of justice,purports also to seek salvation, but it’s all the starting point for his deranged descent into barbarous killing.
James Brining’s purchase on the piece isn’t penny-dreadful or more unsavoury than Mrs Lovetts gruesome pies, and but is a bit of a mish-mash. Set just before Thatcher’s care in the community programme was rolled out,the prologue takes position in Mr Fogg’s asylum, to which Todd’s daughter Johanna will later be consigned by the grotesque paedophile Judge Turpin (Steven Page), and where the WNO chorus play unsettling misfits. But Colin Richmond’s design boxes the action in containers,bloodied corpses sometimes making messy, random exits. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com