List Price: £9.99 Price: £6.37 You save: £3.62 (36%)
Media: Audio CD Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Features:
Soundtrack
Editorial Review:
Despite being known for her televised sleuthing these days, Angela Lansbury once managed to both spook and delight Broadway audiences as the maker of very particular delicacies in Victorian London. In this macabre extravaganza, Lansbury's Nellie Lovett is the accomplice of Len Cariou's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. After he slashes his victims, she turns them into her meat pies' main ingredient. For this most ghoulish of shows, Sondheim looked for inspiration in the way the music is used in horror and suspense movies, particularly in the soundtracks of Bernard Herrmann. The winner of nine Tony Awards in 1979, Sweeney Todd may not be Sondheim's most accessible score, but its operatic complexity (it is almost entirely sung-through) makes it darkly spellbinding. --Elisabeth Vincentelli
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 5.0 / 5.0
The original... Although the amazon site includes the wrong sound samples above (they are from the LaPone revival), this item is indeed the original cast recording with Lansbury and Cariou. Even better, it's been remastered and includeds 2 bonus track not featured on the original (and much more expensive) RCA double disc. What a find!
GREAT RECORD OF A GREAT SHOW I have seen many Sweeneys over the years from Alun Armstrong (wonderful actor, perhaps not the greatest singer) to Sir Tom Allen (excellent on both fronts but in an overblown production), from George Hearn and Dennis Quilley (both a bit too musical-comedy) to Paul Hegarty in the slimmed down Watermill production - and not forgetting Leon Greene in a memorable production at the theatre where Sondheim first saw the play that sparked off his interest in the story. But the most complete Sweeney of all is still... more info
The Operatic Masterpiece of the American Musical Theater "Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is closer to the operatic world of Verdi and Donezetti than it is to Rogers & Hammerstein or Lerner & Lowe, and there have been times when it has been performed in opera houses as well it should. This show is replete with arias and quintets, duets and chorus numbers. More than any other American "musical" I can think of, there are different characters singing different things at the same time, just what you would expect to find in an opera. Besides,... more info
Antidote to 'Oliver!' With this show, Sondheim nails the myth of a cosy Dickensian London flocking with endearing cockneys and benevolent toffs. In a grim and grimly funny comment on 19th century society he shows us a corrupt and poisonous judiciary at the top and a naive or downright stupid working-class at the bottom, separated by the rapacious, sentimental bourgeoisie - Mr Todd and Mrs Lovett - happily selling everyone to everybody, literally. Exquisite production values further point up the ironic beauty of these superb... more info
