Sweeney Todd PBS- Page 9

[Musical Master]

Posted: 9/30/14 at 11:21pm

It was quite enjoyable, Thompson was wonderful and funny, Terfel was okay (not the best), and everyone else was good; not to mention that the opening was wonderfully staged and it made sense for what they were doing with a concert production.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 12:44am

I honestly don't think it was *just* the sound design/mix that's to blame when it comes to the orchestra, though. Uneven tones, balance, emphasis on the wrong instruments, even lack of color - those things you can blame (at least partially) on the mix, but I don't think you can say the same thing about sluggish tempos or a general lack of intensity. I think that's all down to Gilbert's music direction.

Funnily enough, I think Gilbert's music direction matched Terfel's performance in many ways, it just robbed the score of its full glory.

Updated On: 10/1/14 at 12:44 AM

[BrerBear]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 1:04am

This is now on AppleTV, in the PBS app in "Live From Lincoln Center."
Says it will be available for 3 years.

Kinda surprised PBS bleeped it. Cannibalism and murder OK, s-word unacceptable.

[icecreambenjamin]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 8:03am

The tone for the entire show was off.
It came off as comedic and flat. Sweeney Todd should be dark and creepy while containing that subtle sick humor that it has. This was partly due to the orchestra which was playing with almost no feeling and a laughably dreadful leading man.
They also tried too hard to be edgy by doing the whole young urban thing. Sweeney IS edgy. Don't try to make it edgier.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 8:39am

I just have to say: GavestonPS, henrikegerman, and mysteriousgrowl, it's conversations like these that make me love BWW!

Oh, please! henrik and growl are idiots!

144 angels fit on the head of a pin, not 143 nor 145! And I can quote First Century numerology to prove it!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 9:15am

Gaveston, you are right - it's at best only subtly different in that I was noting a possible wink to Shakespeare by that other Bard, he of Kips Bay, and supporting that more specific allusion.

Updated On: 10/1/14 at 09:15 AM

[JRybka]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 9:35am

A friend of mine made a crack that evertime Bryn was on he felt that he should crack into a Meatloaf song.
That being said, I thought Emma acted the part 200% better then she sang but you know what -- She totally could be cast as Norma Desmond in the movie version of Sunset Boulevard. She is only 55 and she is about the right age for the part.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 9:50am

I liked Emma's vocals as Lovett in the concert. In fact I liked them a lot. I believed her singing as Lovett's character completely. But if you are suggesting that she can sing Norma, I'm highly skeptical. And if you're suggesting that she should play the part without singing it, count me among those who think there are more than enough singing actors and acting singers of sufficient star power to populate movie adaptations without going the Marni Nixon route. I want to know that I'm hearing an actor's own singing when I watch that actor play a role on screen.

[Musical Master]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 11:54am

The only thing that I really disliked was the orchestrations, my GOD are they dull. This is why Jonathan Tunick is a genius, he would take a 25-30 piece orchestra and make it sound like a great Alfred Newman arrangement. The film and the OBCR are better sounding than this concert was.

[sabrelady]

Posted: 10/1/14 at 12:58pm

I STILL like the Chorus.

"And I can quote First Century numerology to prove it!"

Well u were there weren't u? (;d)

[HighFlyingAdored97]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 12:39am

I meant to ask this the other day - is it common for The Beadle to hit on Mrs. Lovett when he goes to inquire about the bake house in Act II? Because when that happened in the concert I was like ?????

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 6:15am

^^^I've never seen that before. In the many productions I've seen, the Beadle treats Lovett as if she has crabs.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 7:07am

Bryn Terfel can't act. He sings like he just got out of voice class. Very academic. All demonstrative, manufactured emotions, when he even had any at all. He's way too worried about "proper placement" of his tone, too. Blah. That sucks in musical theatre. Even for opera it's amateurish in a dramatic role.

Emma Thompson can act, but wasn't right for the part. She's as menacing as a kindly grandmother. Cute, dotty, and wrong. She has about four good notes in her lower register as a singer, and that's it. Her upper range is covered and weak. Her performance actually made me appreciate Helena Bonham Carter's work in the film version even more. I still could kill Tim Burton for making her "whisper' her entire role, but Helena WAS right for the role. She can be menacing and funny and tragic and threatening. Emma can't do that.

The younger leads were solid. I liked Borle and Audra.

The orchestra was fine, but seemed to play it safe and slow, way too often. They never really came unhinged the way they do in the original orchestra (on the OBCR). No real fire.

The chorus sounded great, and I loved the opening staging.

All in all, it was okay. Without great performances from the two leads, it's hard to be anything more than just okay, no matter how good some of the other elements are.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 8:14am

Gav and henrik: firstly, I love you both and love talking about lyrics with you.

Gav, you make an excellent point about where the stanza needs to go, thematically, for Johanna. And, henrik, thank you for pointing out the R&J allusion. I agree that the unsinging lark emphasizes all of those things about Johanna’s situation, much in the same way, as Gav pointed out, that the stanza needs to get to Johanna’s wish to be able to cope.

BUT… don’t her semantics make this an either/or proposition? The lark doesn’t sing for one of two reasons – either because larks do not sing in captivity, full stop, OR because the atmosphere of the house is so oppressive that no songbird will sing there, including larks, which, yes, by the way, are notably songbirds.

The first reason is paramount. If captive larks never sing, then they won’t sing in a dark and oppressive hour or a bright and cheery house. The atmosphere is beside the point. So – and I think, Gav and hen, you both agree to as much – this is the reason her lark’s not singing.

Let’s expand the same logic beyond Sondheim’s beautiful economy. It would be like me saying:

“After Eight never argues with me because he has me blocked. And that thread I started last week was so controversial that no one argued with me… not even After Eight!”

That would be a weird thing to say, right?

Updated On: 10/2/14 at 08:14 AM

[newintown]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 8:22am

What is this controversial thread of which you speak?

I miss everything...

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 8:35am

Oh, no, I just made that up. I needed a proverbial house for my example.

After Eight is my proverbial lark. Would that he could be my canary instead!

Lord knows he's certainly everyone's goose.

[Hest882]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 12:44pm

Well, I finally was able to watch this. I enjoyed it, somewhat, since it's...well...Sweeney Todd. I was glad to see what the lead actors did to the roles. However, I agree there's something really off with the orchestration. The entire thing sounded rather anemic in a way that can't just be live vs. taped. I went back and listened to various snippets from the OBC, the filmed 1982 Lansbury version, the filmed SF Symphony version, and even the Jonathan Doyle revival (which only had a small cast of actors playing their own instruments for chrissakes), just to make sure I wasn't crazy. All of those captured the urgency, depth and vibrancy of Sweeney that this one didn't.

Happy this was filmed but won't need to revisit it in the future.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 12:50pm

http://tinyurl.com/pux5pzj

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 1:14pm

Mysterious, thanks, back at 'ya.

But Joanna is talking to birds asking them to teach her to be more adaptive. She's instructing or reminding the birds that larks don't sing in captivity. It's not as if she's simply telling herself something she already knows, much less something she takes for granted. To a large extent she's talking to her pets in the way that people typically talk to their pets. It's almost half assed anthropomorphic cutesy talk .... albeit on a very serious theme; and it borders on condescension. Of course she is confiding in herself at the same time; this is soliloquy by proxy.

Accordingly, while your After Eight truism has a certain Gracie Allen wtf charm, Joanna's shared observation about larks doesn't at all seem misplaced (at least to me).











Updated On: 10/2/14 at 01:14 PM

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 1:37pm

Thanks, henrik.

Gosh, now I'm just trying not to feel thick. I agree with everything you said, but I still don’t see it addressing my question. Am I totally misinterpreting the meaning of the stanza?

My After Eight example was meant to exhibit the exact same logic that I see in the lyric, so let me try again using Johanna's sentiments.

"Larks never sing in captivity. My house is so dark and oppressive that nothing sings there, not even my lark!"

Can you explain how the content of that differs from the content of the lyric? Or could you rephrase her lyric into prose like the above? That might help me understand what I'm missing.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 2:28pm

Hmmmm, now I'm starting to feel thick.

I think if I had to boil down the sequence of her thoughts prosaically, it would be something like this:

My life in my many rooms sucks. Nothing could sing here! Not even something that you - my dear little sweet darlings - should expect to be the first to burst forth in song - oh no!. And what do I mean by that? Why, the lark, of course. Yes, that's right - the lark. The lark in the morning sings so happily. But you know what? That's my point - and I do have one. Larks never ever sing inside. I wish I could be more adaptive than that silly old lark, so please teach me to sing and be happy in this **** hole.

(btw the birds she's singing to must be outside singing non-captive birds (or perhaps caged just for sale outside (I'm forgetting how this is usually staged but yes, that's it, Antony even buys one for her, sorry), not her house pets; so forget I framed it that way; but she's still talking to them like her pets)





Updated On: 10/2/14 at 02:28 PM

[Hest882]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 2:33pm

It's also that Johanna's equating her room to being in a cage. The bird seller's birds sing even though they're trapped inside a cage, so what can she do to make her room, her situation, tolerable enough so that she or a bird could be happy under Judge Turpin's power.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 2:37pm

I always took it as a realization: like "nothing sings in this house, not even a lark, a bird that sings quite prominently. Oh, but that's because larks never sing when they are captured. I hope I can be better than a lark and learn to be happy with my lot."

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 3:38pm

Thank you for indulging me, henrik. I'm going to take some time and ruminate on your interpretation because it doesn't strike me as satisfactory, but you're a great deal brighter than I and I don't want to be quick to rush to judgment. So give me some time to mull that one over.

Sally, your interpretation is much more immediately gratifying than henrik's; I just don't see any "aha" moment in the lyric. "Larks never will, you know, when they're captive" is such a matter-of-fact statement. It seems like information she has right at her fingertips, which is why it's so baffling to me.

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/2/14 at 3:51pm

Sally said what I was trying to say.