THEATRE REVIEW: Sharp staging of Sweeney Todd could benefit from some musical raggedness.
Legendary composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim’swon the 1979 Tony Award for Best Musical. But with 85% of its dark, dramatic storyline sung, and a score requiring a tormented F2-Gb4 bass, flamboyant B2-C5 tenor, and sprightly Bb3-A5 soprano, operatic stagings seemed inevitable.
It was also only a matter of time before Austin Opera would give it a go. its first musical since opening in 1986 and, to date, its highest-grossing show. Still, genre-jumping comes at a cost.revolves around a despondent barber out to avenge his wrongful imprisonment and the senseless destruction of his fledgling family.
The stage is brimming with multistory pieces and parts that rotate and roam with ease, purpose, and dramatic effect. And because the musical has now transitioned into the realm of opera, that performance space is also filled with classically trained artists with powerful head voices and, it seems, genetically engineered diaphragms.
Bob Fosse once said that “the time to sing [onstage] is when your emotional level is too high to just speak anymore.” In opera, there’s the additional need to sing in heightened expression with raised volume per the traditional tropes and techniques that guide the art form. The featured players indo this brilliantly and masterfully manage Sondheim’s dense and difficult lyrics, demanding vocal range, and enigmatic melodies.
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