BARBER CHOP
Vancouver Opera gets bloody with latest adaptation of murderous tale Sweeney Todd.
Vancouver Opera ends its season with another bold (or is it pragmatic?) choice — a six-performance run of Steven Sondheim’s dark 1979 hit Sweeney Todd.
The man to ask about the ramifications of a contemporary opera company turning to a work associated with Broadway is general director James Wright, now entering his final season with VO, and the architect of its programming strategy.
“For quite a while now, at least three or four years, Stephen Sondheim has come up in our conversations about future productions,” Wright said in a phone conversation last week.
“The two works given serious consideration were Sweeney and A Little Night Music. The success of West Side Story (in 2011) showed us that we could do a musical on a scale that couldn’t otherwise been seen here. This production is going to be a powerhouse, and will signal our belief in the legitimacy of the piece for an opera company.
“And there are so many current productions of Sweeney across the world.”
Indeed, Sondheim’s Grand Guignol-meets-Broadway version is enjoying any number of contemporary revivals, the most celebrated of which was the recent English National Opera production featuring Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson.
Sweeney Todd is a grisly tale of revenge and madness: wrongly transported to Australia by a corrupt judge, the hero barber — now calling himself Sweeny Todd — returns to settle scores, slitting the throats of his customers and dispatching their remains to be made into meat pies by partner in horror, Mrs. Lovett.
Opera has explored some very dark themes over the course of the last century, with an all-toocommon audience backlash as a result. Companies mounting a Wozzeck, a Mahagonny, or even a Death of Klinghoffer need deep pockets and loyal subscribers.
It’s ironic that Sondheim took musical theatre into similar territory and raked in the cash. Wright describes Sweeney as “a way of moving conventional opera fans a little further along the spectrum. It will, we hope, attract a somewhat younger audience as well — moving them all into our space. It is a way of broadening the appeal.”
The underlying strategy is to bring new listeners into the theatre, as Wright frankly admits.
“There’s three demographics we’re trying to juggle. First, the traditional operagoers who don’t want to see a 20th production of Boheme; second, the younger set who don’t feel ready for opera, but might go to see a musical; and third, a new audience, which doesn’t know what it wants to see, and might be attracted by sheer novelty,” he said.
Lavishing the resources, expertise and quality that a big company like Vancouver Opera can provide is a different proposition from a Broadway production, let alone a for-profit touring company of the sort that blows into town for a while then moves on.
And when an opera company tackles a work like Sweeney Todd there are different production issues to those involved in mounting Verdi or Puccini.
“For West Side Story we chose two legitimate voices to play Maria and Tony,” Wright said. “And we surrounded them with smaller voices, and a huge dance chorus. Sweeney requires really fine singers, and we have been able to get Greer Grimsley and Luretta Bybee, both legitimate voices and also good actors. We are thrilled with our young soprano and tenor, Caitlin Wood and Rocco Rupolo. Their voices are really, really good, and they are exactly the right ages. We found some other legit voices who have worked mainly in Europe.”
Ultimately, the success of the enterprise hinges on how audiences respond to the show. Wright is confident that the opera company can do everything better than Broadway: better voices, superior orchestra, more depth, and a lavish scale of production.
“Theatre conventions and audience expectations have changed enormously over the last 40 years,” he said. “Our Sweeney is updated to be roughly contemporary. It really lends itself to various interpretations.
“The physical production is huge, on a multi-tonne turntable with the orchestra in the centre, so we are using the pit raised up. We’ve taken out seats to accommodate this. No one has ever seen a musical this big in this town.”