Sweeney Todd - Royal Festival Hall, 5 July 2007
Watching a musical theatre piece without a full staging did sound as if it could be worryingly like watching Shakespeare being read out round a table, but in the event this 'semi staged' performance was really not bad at all.
The open stage with the orchestra in the corner, the office furniture that served as props and the please-supply-your-own costumes made the venture look like a school play.
But if all the budget was blown securing the services of Bryn Terfel in the title role, it was worth it. He clearly relishes this part, and every second he spent on stage was magic. And it wasn't only his singing - although, predictably, Bryn handled this magnificently, Sondheim doesn't demand a great voice or really give his Sweeney many places to go musically. He was just genuinely scary. When he stepped off the stage and into the audience at the end of the first act to sing about his plans for murderous revenge, he stood about six inches away from me at one point, dripping sweat (yeah, the air conditioning's something else that needs fixing) and I nearly pewped with terror.
There weren't any disappointments elsewhere in the cast either. Close your eyes and there were some rather ropy voices here and there - most were singing actors rather than classically-trained voices. But with the careful attention paid to movement and blocking, and the assured characterisations, this emerged as very much a theatre piece rather than a musical one in any case. Only where heavy orchestral arrangements buried the voices (Sondheim's fault more than the performers') did any weakness really become apparent. Maria Friedman's Mrs Lovett was hilarious, a perfect visual and musical foil to Bryn Terfel.
The young chorus impressed with their precise ensemble and amazingly clear diction - surprisingly a lot better than what I've been hearing recently at the ENO. With a piece like this, where the music is ultimately no more than a cushion to support a dazzling text, that really mattered.
The stage pre-show:
Curtain call:
For more info, the BBC and Southbank Centre have produced a podcast so uncritical it could double as an obituary (about 30 mins long).
And WhatsOnStage.com have a terrific set of rehearsal photos.
