1) A *very* interesting performance for me, as I saw "Sweeney Todd" on Broadway just after it opened and two excellent regional productions since then. This is the *first* time I've seen Judge Turpin's "Joanna" aria and the subsequent scene performed. It was cut from the show prior to the Broadway opening, although the aria is on the original-cast recording. Also, the Todd-Pirelli contest includes a tooth-pulling (there's only one fellow with a toothache in the crowd, so Pirelli demonstrates his skill on poor Tobias). It was cut from the concert performance *and* the last production I saw (at City College of San Francisco last summer). Pirelli's opening verse about shaving the Pope was cut from the Broadway show, but is on the OCR.
2) Timothy Nolan is THE BEST JUDGE TURPIN I'VE SEEN YET. He captured that special menace of a character corrupted by power and twisted by that nasty, un-Christ-like Christianity all too prevalent in 19th-century London (and still fouling our spirits today). And of course, he sang well.
3) I've got a special place in my heart for Len Cariou's Sweeney, but George Hearn was pretty damn good - and his final scene brought tears to these cynical eyes.
4) Patti Lupone was... different. The Arden Theatre production in Philadelphia in, um, 1993? had a Mrs. Lovett of similar bent-- youthful, semi-attractive, and with a legit voice-- but I just couldn't handle Lupone's half-hearted stabs at Cockney dialect and all that mugging.
Wonder if they'll put out an audio recording. I'd like to get it.
Elizabeth Finkler San Jose (as of last night), California mightymezzo@h... http://home.earthlink.net/~mightymezzo
"Ist auf deinem Psalter, Vater der Liebe, ein Ton Seinem Ohre vernehmlich, So erquicke sein Herz!" --J.W. von Goethe
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