Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 1, 1993 TAG: 9310010031
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was a close shave, but Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street" just missed the line that separates a good show from a memorable one.
There are highlights aplenty in this macabre little work, most notably Annie Hughes, who was born to play the grisly Mrs. Lovett. Hughes has the attitude, the voice and the stage presence to milk all the potential from the role created by Angela Lansbury.
Craig Fields was nearly as effective as the revenge-obsessed barber in the London of 1846. His powerful baritone blew all the other men off the stage - though his voice Wednesday night lacked the finish it usually has and at moments verged on bellowing.
John Sailer's sets! What other word is there but "perfect"? Though guest stage director Jonathan Arak had intended to rent a set for this show, a last-minute price increase forced him back to a layout almost identical to the one Hal Prince used in the original 1979 run.
But the gritty, gray Dickensian realism of Sailer's stage was all that could be asked for. It makes Opera Roanoke's "Sweeney Todd" a visually exciting show.
The same cannot be said for the costumes of the chorus, more than half of which suggested not the London of Dickens but some pseudo-Brueghel medieval village of uncertain identity.
Frederick Reeder was entirely convincing as the lecherous Judge Turpin, and his "Pretty Women" duet with Craig Fields balanced beautifully between tenderness and male worldliness. Dean Anthony's Pirelli, the fake Italian barber who unwisely tries to blackmail Sweeney, was hilarious. Anthony doubled as the foul proprietor of Fogg's Private Insane Asylum, who is crazier than any of his patients.
It would have been hard to find a better assistant for Pirelli than Dan Sklar's Toby, who was the center of attention during the "Pirelli's Elixir" ensemble scene. And Christianne Tisdale's mad beggarwoman was excellent.
It was a relief that Jeffrey Reynolds and Amy Cochrane managed to mute the Ken-and-Barbie-doll factor that seems to be built into the roles of the young sailor Anthony Hope and his beloved Johanna, who is Sweeney's daughter and Judge Turpin's ward.
Tenor Sal Midolo was not especially funny as beadle Bamford, but he has an astounding voice whose upper end vanishes somewhere in the misty heights of the counter-tenor range.
Victoria Bond's small orchestra played almost flawlessly. "Sweeney Todd" may or may not be, as she claims, the equal to a Mozart opera, but its score is undoubtedly a powerful and original piece of work.
The chorus has a particularly important role in "Sweeney Todd," and Opera Roanoke's chorus did a generally yeoman job Wednesday night. In this work the chorus has a Greek role, commenting on the action, pointing out things the audience might have missed, and moving the action ahead from scene to scene.
But in the more difficult ensembles they were unable to stay on track without taking their eyes off Victoria Bond even for a second. The unsettling fact that nearly every single chorus member was fixated on the pit during the virtuoso tavern scene "God, That's Good" deprived the scene of much of the manic energy it requires.
"Sweeney Todd" continues tonight and tomorrow night at 8 p.m. at Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke. 982-2742.
by CNB