SWEENEY TODD: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

The State Opera has embarked upon a most extraordinary project: it will stage Stephen Sondheim’s legendary 1979 Broadway musical SWEENEY TODD: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, based on Hugh Wheeler’s book.

Composed by one of the major figures of 20th-century musical theatre — the creator of 16 musicals and hundreds of songs, who launched his career writing the lyrics for Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story — it is an iconic work of its genre. SWEENEY TODD: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a riveting synthesis of dark humour, horror and melodrama, imbued with brilliant musical irony.

Sondheim unfurls a chilling story of revenge born of injustice, which devours everything human. Victorian London is revealed as a labyrinth of poverty, corruption and hypocrisy, in which law is bent by those possessing power, and justice is the privilege of the select few who can pay for it. Following years of exile after having been falsely convicted and robbed of his family and identity alike, the barber Benjamin Barker, now “Sweeney Todd”, returns to London. His only goal is revenge and punishment. The barber’s razor becomes a tool of “justice”. Todd kills his customers, and with the help of his accomplice, the baker Mrs. Lovett, has their corpses processed into meat pies, which are a culinary sensation much craved by Londoners. Sondheim’s music is extremely variegated, rich in contrast, ranging from bizarrely light numbers through lyrical passages to spectacular ensembles, propelling the story precipitously forward. Humour thrills, tragedy is masked by irony, with the audience constantly wavering between laughter and consternation. 

• Authors: Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler
• Stage director: Martin Čičvák

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