Elizabeth – As I looked around Avery Fisher before Sweeney Todd started, I was a bit irritated about having paid $220 for a ticket.  Growing up, Avery Fisher is where my parents took us for Mostly Mozart festival performances and other classical music concerts.  It was “safe” for kids in that (at least at the time) the tickets were inexpensive and so if my brother or I threw a tantrum it would be a quick and easy escape and people couldn’t be too upset as it wasn’t like they paid hundreds of dollars for their tickets.  So when all the singers, including Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel, walked out in formal wear, carrying their books of music and setting up music stands I was reminded I had paid $220 for a recital, not a real staging of the musical.  Irritating, but clearly the price Thompson and Terfel can command as the place was packed.

But barely a note was sung before the singers tore off their formal wear, tossed down their binders of music and kicked over the music stands.  What looked like a piano was flipped upside down and the proper gold curtain at the back of the stage dropped to reveal graffiti and a red bloody handprint.  Sweeney Todd was very much a staged production and hopefully it comes to Broadway or Lincoln Center’s Theatre soon.  The energy created by Thompson and Terfel was tremendous.  This was my first time hearing Terfel and it was odd to hear him sing miked, but he sounded great.  He very much became the murderous barber and had such emotion, notably when singing about coming back from Australia to find his wife and child gone, now belonging to another man.  It was amazing how quickly Terfel (along with Sondheim’s irresistible songs) won the audience over and easily had us feeling empathy for the poor murderer.  I am curious as to how being miked affected the way he sings.  It seemed at points he was holding back from singing full voice, probably to save our eardrums.

Emma Thompson was a joy to see perform live.  I kept checking her through our opera glasses because I thought she was in her 50s in real life, but onstage she had the energy of a 20 year old.  Her ability for physical comedy is truly a gift.  She interacted with the orchestra (which was onstage), stealing the conductor’s baton, taking chairs from cellists.  She used her voice well considering she isn’t a trained singer as far as I know.  Her breathing was such that she couldn’t hold long notes for their called for length, but she covered it well.  At times Thompson was hard to understand, but I think most of that was the quick pace of the songs.  She makes her voice crack for effect as the poor pie maker trying to win over Sweeney Todd.  I particularly enjoyed watching her wipe her nose then rub it in her pie dough. 

The cast was strong, every one of them.  Erin Mackey was a beautiful Johanna.  Her light voice coupled with Jay Armstrong Johnson’s (Anthony Hope) sweet earnestness had me hoping the couple would end up together.  And Jeff Blumenkrantz’s coolly cruel The Beadle was the epitome of a lackey.

Fingers crossed more New Yorkers get to experience Thompson and Terfel’s Sweeney Todd in the near future.

But regardless, wow, what a show.  I had forgotten how excellent Sweeney Todd (and Sondheim in general) is.  I haven’t heard it in its entirety since I was a young boy.  Really great it is.  And Terfel is a picture perfect Todd for me.  His Todd could perhaps have a slightly greater range of emotions but I don’t care.  Terfel is, obviously, a world class singer and performer.  One of the very best currently walking around on the planet actually.  

Terfel’s albums have a very high place in my iPhone play lists BUT I have never heard him live.  After an unfortunate experience in the new Ring at the Met –blank- years ago he has not returned.  Many theories float as to why.  All I know is that I had never seen him live and am much happier now that I have.  Miked or no.  

Emma Thompson entered to thunderous applause.  Thompson doesn’t have much of a voice in her higher range but who cares?  She’s a fantastic, consummate performer and was electrifying.

Philip Quast as Judge Turpin, Erin Mackey as Johanna and Jeff Blumenkrantz as The Beadle stood out in the rest of the cast although everyone was excellent.  There were no real weak links that I could discern.  We missed Audra MacDonald who did the Beggar on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday but got Bryonha Marie Putnam who performed admirably. 

The only downside was the Avery Fisher light cues as usual weren’t crisp.  They were often slightly late and off the beat.  They just can’t seem to handle tight theatrical and dramatic tech cues.   I first noticed this in Musikfabrik’s excellent semi-staged concert of the Stockhausen’s Michaels Reise um die Erde there last year.

I hope this Avery Fisher Sweeney Todd mini-run was a kind of workshop for a larger full production soon to come.  I’d like that very much.  The producers really have their bases covered artistically with Terfel and Thompson.  Something for everyone from opera snob to the most mainstream fan of Thompson’s film work. 

They really could make a fortune with this show and cast.   Obviously not with the NY Phil, though that would be great.  Perhaps at the Vivian Beaumont.  We’ll see.

Alan Gilbert as always is not just a wonderful musician and conductor but a charming, accessible and extremely likable personality as he interacted with Terfel and Thompson.   And of course the NY Phil sounded wonderful.  Perhaps that is why the score sounded so fresh to me.  I had never heard it played by so excellent, or full, an orchestra. 

Avery Fisher is a rowdier crowd than the Met.  Or at least more easily roused to rowdy crowd.   I still remember the frenzied cries of “Gusatvo!  GUSTAVO!!!” at the premier of The Gospel of the Other Mary and the nude roller derby in the lobby of Avery Fisher after New York Premiere of Stockhausen’s Michaels Reise um die Erde.

“This is my Bell.  It tells me to do things.”

To that end, Avery Fisher missed out on selling Sweeney Todd merchandise.  I would have bought shirts and coffee mugs with the Sweeney Todd bloody handprint on them.  But we did get my nephew a copy of “The Lonely Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello” at one of the lobby merchandise tables.

Additionally, the Met MUST get on the free cough lozenge band wagon.  Everywhere else has them.  They needn’t use the crummy wicker baskets in the bathrooms that Avery Fisher does.  The Met could have shiny, (red and gold even), dispensers like Carnegie Hall.

Finally, WHAT is the story with the cover photo of the NY Phil playbill?  I read that it is a photo of NY Phil Associate Principal Percussionist Daniel Druckman.  He cannot be pleased with this photo.  It’s pretty terrifying.