RCA
1979
Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
About This Album
Having adapted Ingmar Bergman to the musical theater with A Little Night Music (1973), then traveled to Japan with Admiral Perry in Pacific Overtures (1976), composer Stephen Sondheim remained in the 19th century for his next Broadway musical, Sweeney Todd. It was arguably his most ambitious work yet, and one of his most controversial. For its subject matter, the show looked to Christopher Bond's 1973 play, itself based on the 1847 melodrama The String of Pearls by George Dibdin Pitt. The story concerns a London barber unjustly exiled so that an evil judge can have his way with the barber's wife. Years later, the barber returns, maddened with a desire for revenge, to begin slicing the throats of his customers on his way to killing the judge. As if that weren't enough, he allows his neighbor to cook the remains into meat pies. It's Grand Guignol, of course, and, accompanying the script by Hugh Wheeler, Sondheim wrote an extensive score that did not stint on the horrific aspects, even as it was full of lavish music and lovely melodies, with the two sometimes placed in ironic juxtaposition. For example, in the third of three different songs called "Johanna," Todd sings movingly of his love for his daughter while dispatching a series of victims with his razor.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,3,4,5,6,8,10,11,14,17,19,20 and 21)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2,3 and 5)

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