23 – 27 July
Opera della Luna’s production of Sweeney Todd: A Victorian Melodrama tours to the Theatre Royal Bath from Tuesday 23rd to Saturday 27th July during the company’s 30th Anniversary year. Featuring a cast of actor-singers accompanied by an orchestra of eleven musicians, Opera della Luna recreates the original melodramatic stage production, restoring the musical element of sensational storytelling with music penned by British opera composers of the Victorian age.
The tale of Sweeney Todd first appeared on the stage in East London in 1847 at the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, as a melodrama: The String of Pearls, based on a popular “penny dreadful” serialised story. Its success and fame grew steadily and by the 1860s it was being staged all over the country. Referencing the show’s origins Opera della Luna brings Sweeney Todd: A Victorian Melodrama to the stage inviting audiences to come and be shocked, terrified, amazed and most important of all: hiss the villain – the notorious Fiend of Fleet Street!
Opera della Luna’s company of actor-singers includes Nick Dwyer as Sweeney Todd, Caroline Kennedy as Tobias Ragg, Lynsey Docherty as Mrs. Lovett and Cecily Maybush, Madeline Robinson as Johanna Oakley, Will Kenning as Jarvis Williams and Ben the Beefeater, Paul Featherstone as Rev. Lupin and Jonas Fogg, and Peter van Hulle as Mark Ingestrie and Jean Parmine.
Paul Featherstone, was last seen at the Theatre Royal playing Sir Joseph Porter, alongside Wiltshire-based Lynsey Docherty as Cousin Hebe, who both return to Bath for the second time this year after touring to the city in HMS Pinafore with Opera della Luna six months ago.
During the last three decades Opera della Luna has staged many operas across the country, including the British Premieres of The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief by Johann Strauss and Three Decembers by Jake Heggie. The company also regularly performs at Buxton, Salisbury and Iford Festivals, and at Wilton’s Music Hall in London. Their work is regularly praised by critics with The Stage describing them as “fast approaching national treasure status”. Sweeney Todd: A Victorian Melodrama received acclaim when the show appeared in London last year and was voted Best Show by The Times.
Sweeney Todd: A Victorian Melodrama is directed by the company’s artistic director, Jeff Clarke, conducted by Michael Waldron and designed by Elroy Ashmore.
Talking about the origins of this stage production, director Jeff Clarke, says: “Sweeney Todd had music when it was first performed, but all those scores have long been lost. When the Grecian Saloon in City Road closed, one of the many East End theatres that would have presented Sweeney, its library of music went to the Drury Lane Archive now in the British Library. Although it contains the music for a number of melodramas, Sweeney Todd has not survived.”
Jeff explains: “Both the Grecian Theatre and the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, which commissioned the first stage version of Sweeney permanently employed orchestras of ten to twelve players. That is why we have commissioned a score for eleven musicians for our production. We have turned to theatre music of the period, or rather music by theatre composers of the period: Michael William Balfe, who wrote many English Operas for Drury Lane, and Julius Benedict, who was resident Musical Director at Drury Lane and wrote a number of orchestral scores. We are using themes from their works and integrating them into the production in the way that we see other music was used in melodramas of the time.”
Founded in 1994, Opera della Luna is a British touring theatre company of actor-singers focusing on comic works. Led by artistic director Jeff Clarke, the company takes its name from Haydn’s operatic setting of Goldoni’s farce Il mondo della luna. Opera della Luna presents innovative productions and adaptations of Gilbert and Sullivan and other comic operas and operettas in English. After directing his own touring opera ensemble in the 1980s, Jeff Clarke formed Opera della Luna in the 1990s. The company also presents concerts, annual Christmas pantomimes and festival productions, and has performed works by Offenbach, Donizetti, Verdi, Strauss, Mozart and Bernstein, with all productions accompanied by a chamber orchestral ensemble.
Sweeney Todd: A Victorian Melodrama appears at the Theatre Royal Bath from Tuesday 23rd to Saturday 27th July. To book tickets call the Theatre Royal Bath Box Office on 01225 448844 or visit theatreroyal.org.uk
Photo credit: Andy Paradise
