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Steven Sondheim has called Sweeney Todd a «black operetta», and this musical, which won eight Tony Awards after it premièred on Broadway in 1979, is indeed a blackly humorous affair. Set in Victorian London, it tells the story of a barber who returns to his home town after fifteen years. Sweeney Todd – the barber’s alias – is obsessed with the idea of taking revenge on the corrupt judge Turpin, who had at the time abused his wife Lucy and banished Sweeney to a penal colony in Australia. Sweeney Todd learns from Mrs. Lovett that his daughter Johanna is living with Judge Turpin, of all people, as his ward. Turpin also intends to marry her in the near future. Sweeney therefore moves back into his old barbershop and whets his shaving knife. However, when his attempt to murder Turpin fails, he swears revenge on all humanity and indiscriminately kills as many people as he can. Mrs. Lovett makes a business of it by turning the corpses into meat pies and selling them extremely profitably to her unsuspecting customers…
Sweeney Todd is considered a musical, but the lushly orchestrated, highly structured score places the piece, which is inspired as much by classic Gothic fiction as horror films, in the proximity of grand opera. The title role thus demands not only an excellent actor capable of convincingly portraying the emotionally deeply wounded, bloodthirsty figure of Sweeny Todd, but also a great operatic voice with the darkest timbre. The Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, who has already been celebrated for the role at the English National Opera and the Lyric Opera Chicago, is ideally cast. Mrs. Lovett, who is prepared to do anything for love of Sweeney Todd, will be sung by the Austrian mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirschschlager. David Charles Abbell, a renowned specialist in musicals, will be at the rostrum of the Philharmonia Zurich. Andreas Homoki will be staging the macabre musical thriller, which came to fame not least through the film featuring Johnny Depp.
