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No one until now has quite settled the argument as to whether Stephen Sondheim's bloodthirsty melodrama Sweeney Todd is an opera or a musical. The South Bank Centre has come up with the only solution. It is truly both. By casting the two lead roles - the demon barber of the title, and his low-life accomplice, Mrs Lovett - from each of these opposing spheres, the production endorses the work's properly hybrid nature.
Bryn Terfel, who first sang Sweeney in Chicago five years ago, is a phenomenon, equally at home in the heaviest Wagnerian role and the lightest of favourite Welsh ballads. For this grand guignol performance he has created an entirely new vocal personality, embracing evil with silken, caressing pianissimos, or roaring, seething anger.
His physical control and facial contortions are masterly, especially when expressing contained, twitching fury.
© Associated Newspapers Ltd.
