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The whole experience of hearing the great Terfel singing Sweeney Todd in the newly refurbished Festival Hall was and is the great excitement of the occasion. But the Festival Hall itself is the disappointment. After spending millions of pounds, the acoustics are no better than before. In addition, the orchestra placed downstage at times out-sounds and over-shadows the singing which bounces back in echoes in that expansive hall. The seats and flooring may look new and spotless but the width of that enormous hall is still a trap for singers unless it is Terfel whose powerful voice can be heard over hurricanes or tornadoes. He can withstand all the elements. The lobbies now streamlined like an airport with characterless bars and three new entrances to the building in front, the rear, and the side, reveal the only obvious differences to the building. The view of the embankment was always a nostalgic treat, that special view which Festival Hall brought to the sound of music. There is a kind of popular appeal, somehow, in the name of 'Canteen' as the main restaurant and rock players blasting away. However, the exuberant students from the Guilford School of Acting Conservatoire gave such vibrancy to the choral singing and moved with such vivacious energy in this grim Victorian London of Sweeney Todd which this gigantic hall needed.
And then, of course, there is the lushly rich baritone tones of Terfel who storms with wild rage, a man broken in spirit and heart, never losing the vocal power while terrifying the audience with his vociferous longing for vengeance. The concert version of operas and musicals is usually quite enjoyable as it gives the music and singing the space you want in listening. Sweeney Todd is a natural for the concert form. David Freeman decided to liven up the concert version by staging the production which was confused and overdone with busy activity calling itself movement thus causing a distraction from the music itself. Fine to have them costumed but improvising sets and props in a mixture of styles is disorientating as demonstrated in Terfel playing Sweeney for real singing in that astonishing range to Maria Friedman's caricature of Mrs Lovett in her singing, her costume and her contrived mannerisms. Some of the English critics thought Friedman's interpretation was an imaginative creation, but it was an exact duplication of Angela Lansbury in the original production which turned Sweeney Todd from opera to musical comedy. Her microphone-enhanced voice in duet with Terfel's fierce baritone is trifling and sometimes inaudible against the great singer.
The remaining cast all had appealing operatic voices that brought out the lyricism of Sondheim's masterpiece which allows the overlapping of opera and musical theatre. Terfel's entrance immediately sets up Sweeney's depth of rage, the means of terror. Philip Quast, who could be a disturbing Sweeney with his acting and singing skills, has his important song 'Mea Culpa' cut, still he sings so beautifully his duet with Terfel in 'Pretty Women'. Who else could compose such musical romanticism for a throat-cutting scene but Sondheim. Daniel Boys' Antony is warmly vocal and especially engaging in singing 'Joanna' to the bell-like soprano of Emma Williams' Joanna. Daniel Evan's Tobias is Puckish yet moving in 'Not While I'm Around', despite a non-operatic voice. Adrian Thompson's Pirelli with just the right Italian tenor is fun. The orchestral sound is fantastic and that organ which bellows out those cadenzas with the chorus is incredible in that hall under Stephen Barlows' intensely exhilarating conducting as he colours the imagery of the music with that charismatic London Philharmonic.
Because of the acoustics of the hall and the need to mike the singers, there are times when the wondrous lyrics are lost and with it their meaning which is crucial to Sweeney Todd. So much of the lyrics have evolved from Chris Bond's play upon which the opera is based and which Bond in his dialogue depicted with the society of man eating man. Stephen Sondheim chose this play because Bond had adapted it to a Brechtian style which Sondheim captured in the lyrics. Here is the depth of a society and not just personal feelings which Sondheim has so inventively incorporated into the libretto shall we say and not just lyrics. The event is only for three performances and will be sold out. No need for import or export.
