#1
Posted: 4/29/05 at 11:22am
Has anyone heard the recording of the 1995 Barcelona production of Sweeney Todd ("El Barber Diabolic del Carrer Fleet"). I picked it up at Footlights several years ago and still give it a listen every once in a while. I usually can't get through the whole thing because of the watered-down orchestrations and because the ghost of the superior Broadway original echos throughout, but there are some pluses.
Pep Molina is a fine Sweeney and Vicky Pena offers some nice character work (if not great singing) as Mrs. Lovett. Muntsa Rius is an oddly cast but vocally excellent Tobias. The young lovers are good, but no match for their Broadway predecessors. Xavier Ribera makes an effectively villainous Judge Turpin, but Pedro Pomares is out-matched by the vocal demands of the Beadle.
What I miss most from this recording - and no doubt will feel the same way with the highly anticipated Broadway revival - are Jonathan Tunick's superb orchestrations. Tunick's work gives Sweeney it's extra dose of drama, romance and thrills, pushing the work into sure classic-dom, making the original Sweeney a benchmark on a par with the best of Wagner or Beethoven.
Pep Molina is a fine Sweeney and Vicky Pena offers some nice character work (if not great singing) as Mrs. Lovett. Muntsa Rius is an oddly cast but vocally excellent Tobias. The young lovers are good, but no match for their Broadway predecessors. Xavier Ribera makes an effectively villainous Judge Turpin, but Pedro Pomares is out-matched by the vocal demands of the Beadle.
What I miss most from this recording - and no doubt will feel the same way with the highly anticipated Broadway revival - are Jonathan Tunick's superb orchestrations. Tunick's work gives Sweeney it's extra dose of drama, romance and thrills, pushing the work into sure classic-dom, making the original Sweeney a benchmark on a par with the best of Wagner or Beethoven.
