Opera review: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The demon barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet St
Music & lyrics: Stephen Sonheim
Directed by Stuart Maunder for New Zealand Opera/Victorian Opera

Auckland season:  To Sept 24 at the Civic
Wellington: Sept 30-Oct 5 at the St James
Christchurch: Oct 12-15 at the Isaac Theatre Royal

New Zealand Opera has finally jumped the divide between classical opera and the stage musical, at the same time moving the Auckland venue from the purpose-built Aotea Centre to the Civic.

The latter has become the natural home for Broadway and West End shows, though purists would question whether the Civic’s acoustics are a match.

In any case, some impressive mechanical support in recent musicals such as Cats have covered up these shortcomings.

The multi-levelled stage set (designed by Roger Kirk from Victorian Opera's Melbourne production) for Sweeney Todd creates a brooding presence for a murderous machine that cements the Civic’s reputation for imaginative pyrotechnics, as in Singin’ in the Rain and Mary Poppins.

Apart from the Civic, the Stephen Sondheim name is also likely to draw in audiences who don’t want surtitles of Italian libretti and are content in knowing they will get a story they understand but still have the capacity to surprise.

Few will not know that Todd (played by the imposing Teddy Tahu Rhodes) is a barber who sets up business above a pie shop and seeks revenge for his deportation to Australia by shaving, and then killing, sundry denizens of Victorian London.

His willing accomplice, Mrs Lovett (Antoinette Halloran), suddenly becomes famous for the quality of her pies as the bodies are minced three times before baking. She quickly recovered from a microphone malfunction

You can see the parallels of what attracted Sondheim to this grisly business  – from unconscious cannibalism to the gas chambers of Auschwitz – until finally the whistle is blown (a loud whistle signifies each new victim).

Both leads comfortably carry the show:  I last saw Rhodes as the French planter in an Adelaide production of South Pacific in 2014.

Todd's downward spiral
Todd is never in doubt about the homicidal nature of his revenge, which turns into a downward spiral because there is no escape.

Meanwhile, Mrs Lovett loses her moral compass when she realises that being admired for the quality of her baking brings material rewards rather than her self-deprecatory description as the maker “of the worst pies in London.”

The abundance of characters around them become either victims of their scheme or potentially able to destroy it. The romantic subplot of Todd’s daughter Johanna (Amelia Berry) trying to escape her virtual imprisonment into the arms of her lover, Anthony (James Benjamin Rodgers), is not as compelling.

Neither is the villainous Judge Turpin (Phillip Rhodes), who hands down Todd’s deportation, has guardianship over Johanna and is the main target for revenge.

However, Helen Medlyn makes the most of her role as the beggar woman – always hanging around and unwanted but also providing a showstopping finale.

Todd’s first victims, Pirelli (Robert Tucker), switches smoothly from Italian snake oil merchant to Irish huckster with ease, while Joel Granger, in his New Zealand debut as Pirelli's offsider Tobias, slips easily into the Todd-Lovett household in a role that proves crucial.

The main cast is rounded out by Andrew Glover as the manipulative Beadle.

Together, with an energetic chorus, they provide a rare opportunity to see some of this country's and Australia's best-known operatic performers in a sophisticated musical that hasn't been superseded for its descent into the netherworld of the serial killer.  

Each of the three-city seasons runs for five shows accompanied by the respective regional orchestras, all conducted by Benjamin Northey.