Sweeney Toddy, Coliseum, London - review

Under pressure to boost its finances, English National Opera has set itself two goals - a joint venture into musicals and new opportunities for its catering. What a brilliant idea to put on Sweeney Todd and hit both targets at the same time. Sondheim provides the musical glitz. Mrs Lovett, a cook to die for, bakes the pies.

Lonny Price's semi-staged production, with Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson as its stars, had already scored a hit at Lincoln Center in New York last year. Sondheim's opera-cum-musical makes an ideal choice for an opera company looking to dip a toe into commercial waters and this was a ready-made import.

The performance starts like a formal concert, but that is only the set-up for a Hitchcock-like twist, as scores are thrown to the ground, potted plants upturned, and formal attire discarded. A handful of musical instruments - kettledrum as stove, trombone as mincer - provide props. It is not a fully potent stage show (the Chichester Festival Theatre revival of 2011 gave us that) but it will do.

All the dark energy of this performance comes from Terfel and Thompson. Sondheim's "Penny Dreadful" leading couple are like Shakespeare's Macbeths prowling the cut-throat, capitalist world of Dickens's London. Terfel dominates the stage as a hugely powerful Sweeney Todd, his titanic bass-baritone plumbing depths of iniquity. This demon barber comes within a whisker of tragic status. Thompson's Mrs Lovett is a brilliant stage animal, who wields a wicked Cockney accent and a more-than-passable mezzo-soprano. Put a meat cleaver in the hands of Nanny McPhee and this is what you get.

The rest of the cast is decent, though there is not much ENO input to be seen. Philip Quast brings years of experience to Judge Turpin. Katie Hall and Matthew Seadon-Young work hard as the young love interest. There are neat caricatures from John Owen-Jones as the foppish Pirelli and Alex Gaumond as a Uriah-Heep lookalike Beadle. Jack North is the vulnerable Tobias, Rosalie Craig a not-too-irritating Beggar Woman. More important, David Charles Abell conducts an expert musical performance, justifying the ENO Orchestra's place in the spotlight. Not quite a great evening, but it is a close shave.

eno.org

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