Best Sweeney?

Since we have one for Mrs. Lovett, I thought I'd make one for the title role. Out of George Hearn, Michael Cerveris, and Len Cariou, who did you think best portrayed the role of Sweeney Todd?

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Michael Cerveris.

I love the haunted Sweeney that Michael Cerveris creates. It makes you pity him more than other, more enraged and upset Sweeneys in the past. It comes out to me more than ever in this production that Sweeney Todd is not the real villian of the show.

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George Hearn is/was Sweeney Todd.

Cerveris annoyed me!
I thought he whined his way through the role, and I've never been a fan of his voice.
I've always thought it was too whiny.

I'm obviously too young to have seen Cariou, but he's my favorite, on record.

I always felt Hearn was TOO much of a singer. But I just really like Cariou's voice. There's something so vulnerable about it, and when he says "Alright!" in Epiphany, it makes me swoon.
Creepy, I know.

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I don't think it's possible for most of us to pick a best Sweeney, since a lot of us haven't seen Len.

Those that did see Cariou will without a doubt tell you he was the best Sweeney, and his performance remains unmatced.

Broadwaygirl, where are you living? There was a threads a long time ago where all the people that saw Len were discussing his performance, and all agreed he was UNBELIEVABLE and his performance has not been topped.

Absurd it's not. Based on pure fact from those who have seen him on this board.


And why must people insist Cerveris is a tenor? If anything he's a higher baritone. A typical tenor could NOT sing as low as Cerveris. He has a very rich lower range.

Updated On: 7/15/06 at 01:00 PM

Len Cariou was certainly the best Sweeney Todd. In every way. George Hearn, as much as I like him otherwise, was either directed to make the role more comical and less threatening or he chose to do that himself. Cerveris sounds like he's having trouble singing the score.

"And why must people insist Cerveris is a tenor? If anything he's a higher baritone. A typical tenor could NOT sing as low as Cerveris. He has a very rich lower range."

Because many people know that voice parts are determined not only by a person's range, but by the timbre of their voices, and the timbre of Cerveris' voice is more like that of a tenor.

"Absurd it's not. Based on pure fact from those who have seen him on this board."
But if you looked earlier in this thread, someone who saw Cariou seemed to enjoy Cerveris' performance the best.

You have a remarkable way of determining "facts" based on a rather small portion of the population's opinion. It's a little scary.

OF all the ones I have heard/seen . . . . George Hern, hands down (or razors up for the ocassion).

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I think that if I *had* to categorize Michael's voice, it would be as a tenor, but like Anthony Warlow, he's kinda superhuman in the fact that his voice range is huge. Although I do stand by my previous statement that Sweeney Todd is too low for him! He could hit those notes, but he simply sounded uncomfortable.

I've heard how Len Cariou's performance was legendary, and that he acted the role brilliantly. However, on the OBC, I'm not in favor of his scratchy voice. I do prefer the role to be sung more operatically, so I'm gonna have to go with George Hearn.

No one I've seen has come close to Cariou. The only performance I've seen that has fully encompassed both the tragedy and the comedy in the role.

If I had to choose a second best, it would probably be Quilley in the first London production, based on the considerable evidence of his performance that's out there, including all the excerpts in that BBC "Making of Sweeney Todd special..

Other Sweeneys I've seen in major productions, I'm sorry, have just been miles behind.

Having said that, I do have to disagree with ljay: There are definitely people who saw Cariou and preferred Hearn (or someone else). I've heard (though this is purely hearsay) that Sondheim preferred Hearn, even though the role was written with Cariou in mind.

But Sondheim's taste in performers often strikes me as questionable.

Anyway, though I didn't like Hearn's performance, I prefer him to Gunton, Nolen, Mitchell, and Delavan. I don't even know what I think of Cerveris as Sweeney because I kind of feel that he's not in a production of Sweeney Todd. What he's in does have its interesting moments, but (for me) it's not really a production of Sweeney. I know that plenty of others disagree and I wouldn't even want to argue about it. I'm glad that people love it, but for me it was a moderately interesting show that used the text of Sweeney Todd (or at least most of it) rather than a production of the show. And I can't even really explain what I mean by that. Well, maybe I could but it would take a lot more words than I feel like writing.

Updated On: 7/15/06 at 02:12 PM

You're wrong.

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