SWEENY TODD • KOMISCHE OPER
★★★★☆☆
Photo: Jan Windszus Photography
REVIEW SWEENY TODD: REVENGE IS BLOOD SAUSAGE IN BERLIN
Revenge is blutwurst, proclaim the neon signs outside the Schillertheater in West Berlin, where the doors open for master director Barrie Kosky’s brand new production of the drama about the demonic barber from Fleet Street.
The king of bling-bling and burlesque doesn’t seem quite as sharp as a razor in his staging of Stephen Sondheim’s black operetta Sweeny Todd; the wronged barber with the understandable revenge motif who slits the throats of his customers and disposes of the bodies as filling in Mrs. Lovett’s best-selling meat pies.
GOT TO SEE THIS was invited to the premiere and witnessed a piece of first-class theatre craftsmanship with a surprising lack of the usual Kosky magic that has made his productions so popular across Europe.
Perhaps it is the Komische Opera’s temporary relocation to the slightly smaller and perhaps less technically resourceful Schillertheater that prevents Kosky’s Sweeny Todd production from unfolding in the master’s usual splendor.
Photo: Jan Windszus Photography
The show’s stage design is supported by huge black and white projections of the squalid 19th century London slums in which the action takes place. The only set piece is a large box in the center of the stage with Mrs. Lovett’s pie bakery at the bottom and the barber shop on top.
Despite several well-timed mass scenographers with street people, the execution seems underdeveloped for long stretches, despite the firm grip in the technical execution of the photostat-based universe.
Photo: Jan Windszus Photography
Fortunately, the cast is top notch with a terrific Christopher Purves in the title role, Dagmar Manzel as Mrs. Lovett and a wonderful Ivan Tursic as the Italian barber Pirelli, who has figured out the barber’s double game and is the first to die in Sweeny Todd’s barber chair after a failed blackmail attempt.
Christopher Purves sings with a nougat-soft baritone and huge stage presence, and I soon recognized him from the role of the Niebelung gnome Alberich from the Ring in both Zurich and Covent Garden. Purves enjoyed himself at the opening night party dressed in a yellow kilt and knee socks. We’re on the top shelf of showbiz.
As you probably know, the mean Judge Turpin (the epitome of the show’s social criticism and social indignation) has set the whole story in motion by sentencing the barber to 15 years hard labor in Australia on false charges, then raping his wife and adopting his daughter.
The poor girl is saved at the finish line from a forced marriage and an involuntary wedding night by the lecher Turpin, superbly portrayed by Hamburg bass Jens Larsen.
Photo: Jan Windszus Photography
Part two gets off to a flying start with large ensembles outside the Pie Shop, which has really taken off with its ‘improved’ recipes. Demand keeps rising and rising, and scores of customers are killed before the barber manages to get revenge on the judge in a complicated finale where not everything is as you thought and not everything goes as hoped.
Foto: Jan Windszus Photography
Four stars from GOT TO SEE THIS for Kosky’s Sweeny Todd, which is theatre entertainment of unconditionally high quality, but perhaps needs an extra gear and some spectacular surprises to reach the star director’s usual spitzenklasse.
