Barney Samson

Opera, Melodrama and the Musical Thriller: Genre in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd has always provoked debate as to whether it is opera, operetta or musical theatre. I

will examine this debate and explore various commentators’ generic readings of the work, giving an

account of how the presence of melodrama, metatheatre and the idea of the ‘musical thriller’ affect the

work’s genre. My discussion will take into account the varying and evolving definitions of the genres,

the interaction between them, the connotations of such generic distinctions, and the extent to which

they rely on institutional, reception and performance histories.

Barney Samson

1

Contents

Why examine genre? 2

Artifice, distance and the musical thriller 6

Opera and machine music 15

Melodrama and virtue 26

Conclusion 30

Bibliography and Discography 33

Note on the text

In specific references to the music, bold numbers refer to the song numbers in the printed vocal score.

For example, (4, bb. 139-142, p. 47) refers to bars 139-142 of song 4 (‘Poor thing’), which can be found

on page 47 of the score.

Barney Samson

2

Why examine genre?

Ever since the opening Broadway production of 1979, much of the literature on Sweeney Todd

has debated its genre: should the work be considered a musical or an opera? This debate is misguided.

Attempts to classify Sweeney Todd suggest that such a categorization will facilitate a deeper

understanding of the work. In fact the opposite is true; an illuminating interpretation of the work is

more likely to be gained by examining how genre functions as a contract between the composer and

the audience.1 Genre in a work must be understood not as the embodiment of a set of characteristics,

but as a mode comprising generic connotations that can be evoked, affirmed or negated as a means of

expression.2 This relies on the idea that generic conventions inform both the composer’s conceptions

and the audience’s interpretation. By a work’s title, form, instrumentation and so on, the author

suggests a particular mode or modes within which the work should be understood. Thus genre is not

simply the ‘creation’ of the composer but an interaction, or generic contract, between composer and

audience. The work must be examined not in terms of the extent to which it conforms to a particular

genre, but in terms of what is connoted by the genres evoked, and how the treatment of those

connotations can express meaning.

The importance of examining genre in Sweeney Todd is demonstrated by the way in which

commentators have approached Sondheim’s work. Bordman believes that Sondheim is unwilling “to

project [his] thoughts and feelings in musical terms that audiences could retain and repeat...

Sondheim’s songs are the hardest to extract from their context and, therefore, the hardest to grow

affectionate about… Commonplaces such as ‘I love you,’ commonplaces that nevertheless help give

songs widespread currency, were rare in his later efforts”.3 This criticism relies on an assumption that

‘good’ musical theatre should consist of ‘numbers’ that are memorable, immediately aesthetically

1 Kallberg has expounded this point: “Works that seem to be anomalous with respect to a genre… expose the flaw behind viewing genre only as a classifying concept… Where the search for common gestures yields a confused picture, we discover that such searches cannot inform us about the meaning of a genre” (Kallberg, (1988) ‘The Rhetoric of Genre: Chopin’s Nocturne in G Minor’ in 19th-Century Music, 11(3), p. 244). 2 Fowler, (1982)Kinds Of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes, p. 37. 3 Bordman, G (1981) American Operetta: From H. M. S. Pinafore to Sweeney Todd, p. 175.

Barney Samson

3

pleasing and able to stand alone devoid of context In fact, the power of Sondheim’s work lies in the

fact that each song relies on the rest of the work for its meaning, rather than being autonomously

memorable or unambiguously positive. Sondheim’s work can be seen as atypical of musical theatre

because he sets out to challenge his audiences and to present them with something ambiguous,

uncertain and often problematic. The use of genre is essential to this agenda, as meaning is derived

not by conforming to generic conventions but by challenging them. Bordman’s criticism is indicative

of the fact that Sondheim is perceived as an outsider to both opera and musical theatre. Much of the

‘mainstream’ musical theatre establishment views Sondheim as being too intellectual and challenging,

while the ‘serious’ academy regards him as part of popular culture and not worthy of academic study.4

While attempts to ‘pigeon-hole’ Sweeney Todd tell us little, they are indicative of the fact that

genre is complicated in the work. Sondheim is a ‘musical theatre’ composer in that he writes works

with words and music for the stage. However, ‘musical theatre’ is not a genre with which Sondheim

seems to be particularly engaged in Sweeney Todd. Rather, ‘the musical’ may usefully be seen in terms

of Heather Dubrow’s conception of a ‘host genre’, “one of whose roles is to provide a hospitable

environment for the other form or forms that are regularly incorporated within them”.5 The

connotations of ‘the musical’ are less important in Sweeney Todd than those of the genres that are

evoked within the work. This becomes problematic, as Sondheim is seen as a composer of ‘musicals’

and cannot escape the ensuing connotations.

This apparent contradiction is at the heart of the debate concerning the work’s genre. The

presence of various genres in Sweeney Todd means that the work can be seen as a ‘generic hybrid’; no

single category can comfortably encapsulate the work, and it draws on many modes of expression in

order to create meaning. Mixed genres can function by comparing genres, informing the

interpretation of one genre by the evocation of another, in order to facilitate comment about the work

and about the genres themselves. Dubrow has written that “when an author chooses to write in a

4 Admittedly, these trends are changing as Sondheim’s works receive far more critical acclaim, if not popular success, and are the subject of several academic texts (see Banfield (1993), Goodhart and Gordon (1997)). 5 Dubrow (1982) Genre: The Critical Idiom, p. 116.

Barney Samson

4

given genre, he is not merely responding to the achievements and the pronouncements of others; he

himself is issuing certain statements about his art and often about art in general”.6 In writing a work

that relies on several genres and their connotations for its meaning, Sondheim not only makes

statements both about ‘his art’ and ‘art in general’, but develops compelling arguments about society.

Significantly, Sondheim chose to give Sweeney Todd the subtitle ‘a musical thriller’ rather than ‘a

musical’ or ‘musical comedy’. The mixture of genres in the work might seem adverse to the thriller,

which relies on a tacit agreement by the audience to engage in a suspension of disbelief. The task,

then, of the audience and the analyst is to recover the meaning implied both by the identification of the

work as a thriller and by the presence of diverse genres within the context of the ‘thriller’. As

Hepokoski observes in reference to Verdi, the question that must be asked is “to what ends does he

select a convention in any given dramatic situation? Why does he treat a schema normatively in some

instances but deform it and blend it with others elsewhere?”7

Sweeney Todd will be examined not in terms of which generic category it best ‘fits’, but by

examining how it manipulates the connotations and expectations associated with various dramatic

modes of expression, including the thriller, musical theatre, opera, melodrama and tragedy. It must be

noted that approaching a work through its use of genre cannot provide us with its meaning, but

facilitates one interpretation of what the work is concerned with and how it may be usefully

considered. The intention of this dissertation is to explore the ways in which Sondheim evokes genres,

what they connote, and how he manipulates these connotations. This processes will be contextualised

within the conception of the work as a ‘musical thriller’, and will form the basis of an interpretation of

Sweeney Todd and the extent to which it succeeds to convey an ideology.

Before discussing the work in greater detail I will provide a brief synopsis. The bitter Sweeney

Todd, (real name Benjamin Barker) arrives back in London from a penal colony with Anthony, a

young sailor (‘No place like London’). Mrs. Lovett, who owns the pie shop below Todd’s old premises

(‘The worst pies in London’) tells him that his wife Lucy took poison after being raped by the Judge

6 Dubrow, p. 10 7 Hepokoski, (1989) ‘Genre And Content In Mid-Century Verdi’, Cambridge Opera Journal, 1(3), p. 251.

Barney Samson

5

(‘Poor thing’); Todd vows revenge (‘My friends’). Meanwhile, Anthony sees Todd’s daughter Johanna,

now the ward of the Judge, and they fall in love (‘Green finch and linnet bird’, ‘Ah Miss’, ‘Johanna’).

After realising Todd’s true identity, fellow barber Pirelli tries to blackmail him; Todd kills him and

Mrs. Lovett adopts Tobias, Pirelli’s young assistant. The Judge tells Johanna that he plans to marry

her, and she plans her escape with Anthony (‘Kiss me’). The Judge follows Beadle Bamford’s advice to

go to Todd for a shave (‘Ladies in their sensitivities’); the Judge and Todd discuss ‘Pretty women’, but

when Anthony bursts in, revealing his and Johanna’s plan to elope, Judge Turpin leaves. When Todd

declares vengeance on the whole world having lost his chance for revenge (‘Epiphany’), Mrs. Lovett

suggests that they use the bodies of Todd’s victims to improve her meat pies (‘A little priest’). Act II

opens on a successful pie shop (‘God, that’s good’). Anthony laments that the Judge has had Johanna

locked in an asylum (‘Johanna’). Tobias voices his distrust of Todd (‘Not while I’m around’) and

worried by his suspicions, Mrs. Lovett locks him in the bake-house. When the Beadle arrives at the

pie shop (‘Parlour songs’) Todd kills him; meanwhile, Anthony rescues Johanna. As Todd waits for

the Judge to arrive in his Tonsorial Parlor, he discovers the Beggar Woman and kills her before

slitting the Judge’s throat. In the bake-house, Todd realises that the Beggar Woman was, in fact, his

wife Lucy and in his grief throws Mrs. Lovett into the oven. Finally, Tobias, insane from being locked

in the bake-house, kills Todd. The action is introduced, interspersed and concluded with different

versions of ‘The Ballad of Sweeney Todd’, in which the chorus narrate and comment on the action.

Sweeney Todd is based on Christopher Bond’s play, which Sondheim saw at the Theatre Royal,

Stratford East in 1973.

Barney Samson

6

Artifice, distance and the musical thriller

Sondheim has made clear that he conceived of Sweeney Todd primarily as a thrilling work, as

suggested by his decision to give it the subtitle ‘a musical thriller’:

“I wanted to write… a horror movie. The whole point of the thing is that it’s a background score for a horror film… All those chords, and that whole kind of harmonic structure… the use of electronic sounds and the loud crashing organ had a wonderful Gothic feeling. It had to be unsettling, scary, and very romantic… I figured the only way to tell a horror story is to keep musical texture going… One of the ways of making things creepy is to sing softly with very dry lyrics against a kind of rumble of ‘Gee, what’s going on? They’re not saying terrible things on stage, so why do I feel so uncomfortable?’ It’s because something is promised… Music is what holds it together. That’s why so much of Sweeney Todd is sung and underscored – not because I wanted to do an opera, but because I realised the only way to sustain tension was to use music continually, not to let the heat out”.8

It is apparent that Sondheim intends to draw the audience into the world inhabited by his characters

through the use of ‘unsettling, scary’ music, the affective power of ‘romantic’ music, and suspense based

on ‘something promised’.

The idea of ‘not letting the heat out’ is evident in the score. Music is almost ever-present, rather

than consisting of a set of independent songs. Songs run into one another, for example ‘Kiss me – Part

1’, ‘Ladies in their sensitivities’ and ‘Kiss me – Part 2’ (13 -15) and there is almost always music to

underscore the dialogue. The underscoring often consists of harmonic and melodic motifs from the

songs themselves, such as the underscore from b. 13 of ‘Parlor songs – Part 3’ (24B, p. 312), which uses

Todd’s keening melody from b. 41 of ‘Epiphany’ (17 , p. 175). By removing the clear distinctions

between ‘song’ and ‘dialogue’ that might be found in a more traditional ‘number’ musical the audience’s

involvement is heightened. Five sections of the work, including Todd’s death, were not set to music,

although Sondheim had originally intended that they would be.9 However, the use of silence is

musically effective; Tobias’ unaccompanied dialogue immediately before Todd’s death provides a

contrast with the preceding music and with the factory whistle that blows at the moment of Todd’s

8 Sondheim quoted in Zadan, pp. 246-8. 9 Banfield, in The Broadway Musicals of Stephen Sondheim (1993), suggests Todd’s death “remained unsung and unplayed simply because Sondheim did not have time to add music before the production opened”, p. 290.

Barney Samson

7

death.10 This is appropriate because Todd’s death at the hands of Tobias is also shocking in terms of

the narrative. Though Tobias has suspected Todd of wrongdoing, Todd has never wronged him

personally and it is Mrs. Lovett who causes Tobias’s madness by locking him in the bakehouse. Thus

there is little dramatic logic in Tobias killing Todd, creating a coup de théâtre. Another shock made

explicit in the music is Todd’s realisation that he has killed Lucy, which is marked by a forte falling

semitone at bar B (ex. 1).

The concern with audience involvement is reflected in the musical techniques used. The recurring

motifs in Sweeney Todd have semantic content based on codified musical meaning as well as the

meaning they attain by association with diegetic events.11 As such, they contribute to the involvement

of the audience in the diegesis by evoking certain states or emotions to enhance characterisation. “If

you really look at the first twenty-five minutes of this show, it’s a series of solos… I determined that it

was [very] important, for the audience’s sake, that everybody should be very clearly characterised”.12

The ‘madness’ motif, which represents Todd’s obsession for revenge, is metrically unstable, dissonant

and contradicts traditional voice-leading conventions, all of which connote negativity, while its

repetitiveness can be seen as implying ‘obsession’ (ex. 2).

10 In fact the factory whistle marks the death of each victim, adding an aural shock to the dramatic horror. 11 A leitmotivic conception can be seen as an inherently cerebral rather than visceral technique; leitmotifs often function on an intellectual level, removed from the coherent narrative of the diegesis, by associating particular music with diegetic events. This might seem antithetical to the horror film, which intends to elicit ‘gut-reactions’. However, the leitmotifs in Sweeney Todd are evocative in themselves as well as being aural signposts through the work. As Sondheim notes: “the relentless underscoring in forties movies cues the audience’s emotional response, which is what I tried to do in Sweeney” (cited in Hirsch, (1989) Harold Prince and the American Musical Theatre, p. 124). 12 Sondheim quoted in Horowitz, (2003) Sondheim on music: minor details and major decisions, p. 138.

Ex. 1: Todd’s realisation that he has killed Lucy in ‘Final scene – Part 1’ (29, bb. A-B, p. 351)

Barney Samson

8

The use of music to elicit empathy from the audience can also be seen in the heroic contours and rich

orchestral accompaniment of Anthony’s Act I ‘Johanna’ (8, p. 74), or in Todd’s description of his wife

swelling to a lush climax on the word “beautiful” in ‘No place like London’ (2 , b. 242, p. 30). ‘Green

finch and linnet bird’ has a “yearning, wavelike feeling… there’s a little dying fall at the end of each

[phrase]… If you don’t change the chord, you’re not yearning for anything, because you’re not looking

for resolution”.13 A similarly emotive musical technique is Todd’s modified echo of Anthony’s feelings

about London (ex. 3), which portrays Todd’s bitterness through the use of a minor inflection.

13 Sondheim quoted in Horowitz, p. 133.

Ex. 2: Sweeney’s ‘madness motif’, used leitmotivically at times when Todd is particularly angry or is plotting his revenge such as at b. 256 of ‘No place like London’ (2 , bb. 256-257, p. 31).

Ex. 3: The idea of negativity implied by codified musical meaning (minor = negative) in ‘No place like London’ (2 , bb. 7-8 and 13-14, p. 20)

Barney Samson

9

Serving the same purpose, Todd’s anguish at learning of Lucy’s rape in ‘Poor thing’ is portrayed by

dissonant brass chords with a crescendo and rhythmic diminution (ex. 4).

In ‘Epiphany’ (17 , p. 170) Sondheim shows that Todd’s madness is due to the loss of his wife and

daughter, and his resulting anger. The focus of Sweeney’s revenge changes from the Judge to the

world. The music begins with the ‘madness’ motif (ex. 2), followed at b. 10 by a rhythmically modified

version of Mrs Lovett’s advice for Todd to slow down from ‘Wait’, (12 , bb. 25-28, p. 116), and at b. 16 by

a return to the madness motif in the orchestra (now in double-time). Sondheim consciously attempted

to demonstrate musically that Todd’s mind is cracking by writing music that switched “between

violent and lyrical passages, and had rapid rhythmic shifts, from quick to slow”.14 The contrasting

ideas are juxtaposed to suggest Sweeney’s transition from vengeful but rational into an immoral

murderer from b. 22 (Example 5). Music that clearly reflects the character’s emotions creates a

subjective viewpoint of the narrative that positions the audience with that character, thereby involving

them. This involvement allows the work to function as a ‘thriller’ because the audience have an

emotional investment.

14 Sondheim quoted in Banfield (1993), p. 307.

Ex. 4: Todd’s reaction to hearing of Lucy’s rape in ‘Poor thing’ (4, bb. 174-175, p. 50)

Barney Samson

10

Ex. 5: in ‘Epiphany’ (17, p. 173). (a) bb. 24-25, (b) bb. 28-29, (c) bb. 41-42, and (d) bb. 45-46. (a) the dynamic, mechanical accompaniment implies that Todd has been turned into a killing machine. The accompaniment contains the Dies Irae motif starting on the G in the bass clef. (b) The mechanical idea remains but is wilder, punctuated by syncopated brass and percussion interjections. (c) An anguished lament based on the falling semitone motif. (d) Extremely percussive and disjointed, as Todd speaks directly to the audience

Barney Samson

11

Suspense is essential to the idea of the thriller and is fundamental to the narrative of Sweeney

Todd. It is created through the delaying of events that the audience expects to occur: Todd’s demise

(his initial appearance from the grave suggests that the play will be the story of his downfall) and the

narrative’s explicit goal of the Judge’s death. Musically, suspense is created by alternately building up

and negating the audience’s expectations; this can be seen in the music when the Judge first visits

Sweeney. ‘Pretty women – Part 1’ creates tension by a contrast between cheerful music and the

audience’s knowledge that Sweeney is planning to kill the Judge. In ‘Pretty women – Part 2’ (16A, p.

163) the music is more explicitly tense as Todd prepares to slit the Judge’s throat. As he repeatedly

hesitates the tension is repeatedly increased and released (ex. 6). The repeated interruptions create

suspense as to when and how the musical tension will be resolved. The desire for resolution increases

the extent to which the audience is immersed in the diegesis, reinforcing the notion of the ‘thriller’. A

further example of this is the use of music to reflect nuance that would be unexpressed if only dialogue

were present: in ‘The letter’, the importance to Todd of the word “young” is demonstrated by its

rhythmic placing in the phrase (22A, bb. 11-14, p. 287).

Music is used to sustain audience involvement by its almost constant presence and the way in

which it depicts characters’ emotions in order to create empathy. It is in this context that thrilling

shocks and suspense can be created. However, this idea of audience involvement conflicts with ‘the

musical’ as an inherently theatrical mode of expression; the idea of the affective ‘horror film’, which

Sondheim describes as being “unsettling, scary…” contrasts with the artifice of a staged work. The

physical distance between the audience and the stage creates an awareness of theatre’s ‘theatricality’,

whereas film is able to show events from a more subjective perspective. There is also an inherent

difficulty due to the symbiosis in the musical theatre, usually absent in the medium of film, between

non-diegetic music and diegetic lyrics. Theatre audiences are expected, and happy, to accept the non-

naturalism of characters’ dialogue being sung. Essentially, this results in an imbalance between film

and music theatre in the extent to which the audience are required to suspend their disbelief, which

limits the extent to which Sondheim was able to achieve his aim to write a horror movie.

Barney Samson

12

Ex. 6

bb. 1-10 Todd whistles the F major melody from ‘Pretty women – Part 1’ without the harp ostinato.

11-20 Recall of ‘My friends’ (Todd’s internal thoughts), which is explicitly tense: an A minor

ostinato and D9 drone underscore the melody, which is increasingly more dissonant,

representing Todd retreating into his own murderous thoughts..

21-24 The Judge impatiently interrupts Todd, with a melody in G major but still over a D9 drone,

clearly derived from ‘Pretty women – Part 1’. The example shows the Judge in ‘Pretty Women

– Part 1’ (16, bb. 5-8, p. 157) and ‘Pretty Women – Part 2’ (transposed) (16A, b. 21, p. 164).

25-32 ‘My friends’ recurs, now in a dissonant context, under spoken dialogue. As Todd asks the

Judge if his ward is as “pretty as her mother” the crescendo through the pulsing, dissonant

chords over tremolo strings suggests that Todd will strike.

33-46 As Todd hesitates, the tension is interrupted by the ‘Pretty women’ melody. Superficially

lyrical, the suspense is retained by the pervading and insistent dissonant crotchet A.

47-48 The pulsing crotchets become chords in the harp and trumpets, which temporarily bring the

dissonant element to the fore; it retreats again by b. 49.

49- 56 Todd’s ‘Pretty women’ melody becomes a dialogue, but the dissonant pulsing crotchets are

emphasised earlier this time by the pizzicato bass and the crescendo from b. 55.

57-65 The pacing gets faster, as the dialogue becomes a duet that overlaps increasingly rapidly.

67-75 Todd and the Judge are in harmony, but their companionship is belied by the insistent,

dissonant repeated crotchets in the accompaniment, now accentuated by the orchestration.

76 The tension is finally interrupted by the entry of Anthony.

Barney Samson

13

Central to Sweeney Todd is the idea of metatheatre, the work’s awareness that it is fictional.

Sweeney Todd first draws attention to its own fictional status by the chorus’s direct address to the

audience, emphasising the artifice of the work and establishing a metadramatic level, with a privileged

perspective on the diegesis: “What happens then, well that’s the play, and he [Sweeney] wouldn’t want

us to give it away”. Throughout, the chorus punctuate the action to comment on, narrate and

conclude the work. Furthermore, Todd is presented as being outside the diegesis in the ‘Prologue’, as

he refers to himself in the third person (1 , bb. 138-153, p. 15): “Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd, He

served a dark and a vengeful God”. The metadramatic aspect of the work affects its status as a thriller,

as the effect of acknowledging the work’s fictional status would seem to detract from the audience’s

involvement and from the creation of suspense. The artifice created by the chorus is reinforced when

characters are killed by Sweeney and “within a few minutes the actors reappear as chorus figures”.15

This emphasises that the actors are actors, in a quasi-Brechtian fashion. This is also evident when the

chorus members become the lunatics in ‘Fogg’s asylum’ (25, p. 315).

Schlesinger argues that the audience come to inhabit the world of Sweeney Todd, as “there is

no curtain to separate our fact from [the onstage] fantasy”.16 Excursions from the diegesis generate

moments of scepticism, creating “a psychological nightmare in which we lose our moral footing and

our clarity about good and evil”. This argument is unconvincing, as the use of the chorus does not

create ‘moments of scepticism’ but frames the entire work as a parable. The movements into and out of

the diegesis are clearly identifiable by the recurring music, introduced in the ‘Prologue’. Schlesinger

fails to appreciate that the chorus’s presence outside the narrative continually reminds the audience

that they should hesitate before becoming drawn in.

Various events and situations break the audience’s involvement: the chorus ballads, which frame

the work as a ‘story’; Pirelli, an explicitly theatrical character; the presence of suspended time, which

interrupts the narrative drive; and the use of explicit wit and irony as distancing effects. However,

Sondheim has disagreed with the suggestion that the work is Brechtian:

15 Fraser, (2000) ‘Revisiting Greece: The Sondheim Chorus’, p. 237. 16 Schlesinger (2000) ‘Psychology, Evil and Sweeney Todd, or “Don’t I know you, Mister?”, p. 126.

Barney Samson

14

“People say that because it takes place in Dickensian time, and the only Brecht they know is The Threepenny Opera. A chorus comes out in rags and starts to sing a song and they suddenly say ‘It’s Brecht!’ and of course it isn’t Brecht at all. It’s absolutely the reverse of Brecht. His whole theory, his importance in the history of theatre, is the so-called alienation effect, having things deliberately not involve you. The idea of Sweeney is the idea of a horror movie, which is to say, ‘I want to tell you a story… and this happened… and the door suddenly opened!’ And that’s not Brecht”.17

While this makes clear that Sondheim’s intention was to create a work that unambiguously involves

the audience, many factors detract from the subjectivity necessary to create something ‘horrific’; horror

films often achieve their power by presenting shocking events in everyday situations, thereby allowing

the audience to identify with the characters. By contrast, Sweeney Todd is epic in the Brechtian sense

of the word in that it “narrates or ‘relates’ rather than exclusively dramatizes or ‘incarnates’ the events”.18

Sondheim’s intention to create a thoroughly ‘involving’ work is compromised both by the artifice

inherent to theatre, and particularly musical theatre, and by the influence of Harold Prince, the

director of the first production. Prince’s alternative conception of the work prioritises a social

message, and this can be seen in the fact that the work is not unequivocally concerned with

Sondheim’s intention of audience involvement.19 The metatheatrical interruptions and intrinsic

theatricality of a stage work remind the audience members that they are exactly that – audience rather

than participants.

17 Sondheim quoted in Hobbes (2004) ‘Nick Hobbes looks at what inspired Stephen Sondheim to write Sweeney Todd’ in the 2004 Trafalgar Studios production programme. 18 Adler (1978), ‘The Music Dramas of Stephen Sondheim: Some Critical Approaches’ Journal of Popular Culture 12, p. 516. 19 In fact, Sondheim has also acknowledged that his own attempts to create involvement in the work did not always succeed. He claims to have “failed” to do so in the ‘Prelude’: “it’s too thick-textured; it’s too contrapuntal; it doesn’t have enough sustained notes in it. I don’t know” (quoted in Horowitz, p. 127).

Barney Samson

15

Opera and machine music

Many commentators have suggested that Sweeney Todd should be seen not as musical theatre

but as opera, citing the ‘serious’ musical techniques. The Dies Irae, Madness (ex. 2) and Big Ben (ex.

7) motifs recur in various guises and harmonisations and themes are combined in ensembles (such as

the “Interwoven mosaic of themes” in ‘God, that’s good!’).20 The Judge’s song ‘Johanna’ (11 , bb. 60-62,

p. 381) quotes the ‘Poor thing’ minuet (4, bb. 139-142, p. 47), while ‘My friends’ (5 , bb. 3-6, p. 52) and

‘Kiss me – Part 1’ (13 , bb. 1-2, p. 131) reappear in ‘Pretty women – Part 2’ (16A, bb. 11-20, p. 163 and bb.

76-79, p. 169). ‘Epiphany’ contains reminiscences from ‘Wait’ and ‘No place like London’ (17 , bb, 10-13,

p. 171 and bb. 18-20, p. 172). The accompaniment to ‘Ah Miss’ quotes a minor variant of ‘Green finch

and linnet bird’ (7 , bb. 50-53, p. 72) as Anthony asks the beggar woman who the girl is.

Music is repeated with new words to highlight dramatic points, for example the versions of

“The barber and his wife”, which demonstrate Todd and Mrs. Lovett’s different perspectives on the

same dramatic theme (2, b. 215, p. 27 and 4, b. 5, p. 41). Against Todd’s lament in the ‘Final scene’

(itself derived from the anguished melody in ‘Epiphany’, ex. 5(c)), Mrs Lovett sings ‘Poor thing’ with

new words (Ex. 8), demonstrating that she is defending herself for misleading Todd in ‘Poor thing’.21

This conception clearly owes a debt to opera rather than to ‘the musical’, where it may be argued that

such sophisticated use of recurring material for dramatic purposes is rarer.

20 Citron, (2001) Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber: The New Musical, p. 251 21 The conflicting time signatures reflect Todd and Mrs. Lovett’s relationship after he has realised her deception.

Ex. 8: Mrs. Lovett in ‘Poor thing’ (4, bb. 18-29, p. 42) and in ‘Final scene – Part 1’ (29, bb. 7-8, p. 352) He had this wife you see, No, no not lied at all Pretty little thing No, I never lied Silly little nit Said she took the poison, she did Had a chance for the moon on a string Never said that she died, Poor thing Poor thing

Ex. 7: Big Ben motif from ‘No place like London’ (2 , bb. E-J, p. 19).

Barney Samson

16

Similarly ‘operatic’ is the use of’ musical themes to make dramatic references both in melodic lines and

the orchestra. However, critics have failed to appreciate that ‘operatic’ techniques are used not for the

sake of writing ‘opera’ but to create dramatic unity; this is apparent from Sondheim’s assertion that “[I

have] never liked opera and I’ve never understood it. Most opera doesn’t make theatrical sense to

me”.22

This is not to say that opera is unimportant in the work; an examination of Johanna’s music

illuminates opera’s significance. Stephen Banfield points out that ‘Green finch and linnet bird’ is

overtly operatic in its bird imitation, classically conceived accompaniment style, and archaic lyrics.23

For Banfield, the “self-consciously operatic or classical stance in this number… merely underlines what

the work as a whole is not”.24 In ‘Kiss Me’ Johanna is almost too operatic. Her florid style is equated

with the suggestion that she is overdramatic; when she thinks she hears the gate in ‘Kiss Me’, Anthony

points out “there’s no gate, you don’t have a gate!” (bb. 16-17). Banfield’s argument can be expanded to

suggest that rather than attempting to write an opera, Sondheim is evoking the genre as a topos.

The opera topos is evoked most explicitly in the overt narrative similarities to The Barber of

Seville. The villain (the Judge/Bartolo), assisted by his accomplice (the Beadle/Basilio), is determined

to marry his young ward (Johanna/Rosina) and keeps her under lock and key, her balcony being her

only contact with the outside world. A young hero (Anthony/Almaviva) falls in love with the heroine;

they are eventually united after various foiled escape attempts. However, several factors distance the

two works. Figaro, the Barber of the title, has no clear counterpart in Sweeney Todd, despite the fact

that Sweeney and Pirelli are both barbers. Although the ‘Wigmaker Sequence’ (22, p. 277) makes

reference to one of Figaro’s talents,25 Todd and Figaro are clearly very different characters. Figaro is

not central to the plot of The Barber of Seville but guides and assists the lovers, at times even seeming 22 Savran, D (1990) ‘Stephen Sondheim: An Interview with David Savran”, p. xvi. 23 Banfield, S (1993) The Broadway Musicals of Stephen Sondheim, p. 291. Examples of the latter include “whence comes this melody” and “jubilate”. 24 Banfield, S (1993), p. 291. 25 Figaro’s skill as a wigmaker is referenced in ‘Largo al Factotum’: “Qua la parruca... Presto la barba...” (What about the wig... A quick shave). The Barber of Seville, as a popular and well-known work, functions as a signifier for ‘opera’ and so can be usefully employed to evoke the genre in Sweeney Todd.

Barney Samson

17

to exist outside the diegesis, with an understanding of the situation far surpassing that of the other

characters. Todd lacks Figaro’s foresight and patience, and has a poor understanding of his

circumstances; while Figaro seems to guide the narrative, Todd is at its mercy. Neither is the Italian

barber, Pirelli, a counterpart to Figaro; he is presented as a caricatured, explicitly operatic tenor

barbiere and is essentially a plot-device. Pirelli’s theatrical status is confirmed by the revelation that he

is not really Italian but an Irish impostor; he is exposed as an actor and then disposed of.

The music of the more overtly operatic characters in Sweeney Todd functions differently to that

of Todd and Mrs. Lovett. In extremely general terms, opera tends to function by an alternation of

static arias, suspended in time for character development and emotional exposition, and recitative in

which narrative is driven forward. Johanna’s and Anthony’s songs often function like arias, suspended

in time and serving to describe their emotions; this is evident in ‘Green finch and linnet bird’ (6, p. 62)

and ‘Johanna’ (8, p. 74). This operatic gesture can be seen as connoting an innocence that contrasts

with Todd. ‘Epiphany’ (17 , p. 170) seems at first to be an aria, expressing Todd’s unspoken thoughts.

The audience then discover that Mrs. Lovett could hear him all the time; Todd is unwilling to be

suspended in time like an operatic stereotype. This depiction of Todd can also be seen in ‘The contest’

(10, p.101), where his music is regular and suggestive of an efficient and mechanical shaving technique.

On the other hand, Pirelli seems to think he is in an opera and that he has the operatic ability to

suspend time, regaling the diegetic and non-diegetic audiences with tales of his prowess (ex. 9).

Ex. 9: Contrasting depictions of Todd (10, b. 7, p. 101) and Pirelli (10, bb. 46-47, p. 103) in ‘The contest’

Barney Samson

18

However, Pirelli is a static operatic character in a dynamic context; at the climactic point of his ‘aria’,

he is interrupted. Pirelli sustains a note, attempting to suspend time, but Todd capitalises by rapidly

shaving his man to win the contest. The efficient, industrial Todd triumphs over the archaic Pirelli.

Todd is characterised as machine-like rather than lyrical and operatic. The chorus makes this

explicit: “Like a perfect machine he planned” (10B, bb. 5-6, p. 111). After Todd first tells Anthony why

he was deported, the ‘Transition Music’ owes a debt to machine music (ex. 10).

In ‘Epiphany’, a machine-music topos can be seen in the ‘Feroce’ double-time madness motif,

which creates a sense of an engine through an incessant fortissimo semiquaver pattern (ex. 11).

The accompaniment from b. 22 is mechanical. The different parts of the machine are suggested by the

quavers on each beat, the ‘chugging’ repeated quavers and the bassline, all of which are harmonically

static. Each pattern lasts for a different duration before being repeated. Sondheim notes that the

music is in “a steady four, and every beat has the same emphasis so that it’s locomotive”.26

26 Horowitz, p. 140

Ex. 10: machine-like ‘Transition Music’ (2B, bb. 6-9, p. 32). The offbeat semiquavers create a metrical

pattern in conflict with the quavers on the beat, evoking a factory with clanking machinery. The trumpet

melody from b. 6 recalls the ‘Ballad of Sweeney Todd’ and the brass dotted quavers from b. 73 can be seen

as depicting another ‘machine’.

Ex. 11: double-time madness motif (17, b. 16, p. 172)

Barney Samson

19

Mrs. Lovett’s capitalism and greed, as well as Todd’s calculated scheming, are characterised as

mechanical, for example the irregular percussive punctuation of ‘The worst pies in London’ seems to

portray her struggling business, in contrast with the regular, ‘production line’ feel of ‘A little priest’ (ex.

13) and ‘God that’s good!’ (ex. 14).

In fact, the production line is made literal, in the chute that carries the bodies of Sweeney’s victims

from his barber’s chair to the bakehouse; Todd and Mrs. Lovett’s business is an amoral factory.27 The

construction of a song from repeated self-contained, distinct segments, as is the case in ‘Epiphany’, can

be seen as industrial in itself as its existence as ‘assembled’ music is apparent.

27 The set for the first production was constructed from a disused iron foundry, making the idea of industry explicit.

Ex. 12: accompaniment (17, bb. 22-25, p. 173)

Ex. 13: In ‘A little priest’, the extremely regular triple time and repetitive alternation of scale degrees five

and one in the bass (18, bb. 93ff, p. 188) evoke a machine churning out goods.

The ‘moving parts’ of the machinery are suggested by the hemiolas against the triple time from b. 175.

Barney Samson

20

Ex. 14: ‘God that’s good!’ is derived from Tobias’ earlier song ‘Pirelli’s miracle elixir’. Much of the music is very similar to its antecedent; both songs depict Tobias selling a product (19, bb. 41-44, p. 216). The difference between Pirelli the mountebank and the industrious Mrs. Lovett is shown in the use of the God, that’s good motif, absent from the earlier song, which is manipulated metrically to suggest the impression of a mechanical process (19, bb. 118-121, p. 224). There are 2/4 sections in both ‘Pirelli’s miracle elixir’ and ‘God, that’s good!’ but they represent differing dramatic concerns. At b. 142 of the earlier song (9, p. 95) the time signature change is accompanied by the stage direction ‘frenetically’; this mood is shown in the frantic accompaniment (9, bb. 150-153, p. 95): The accompaniment to the corresponding section of ‘God, that’s good!’ (19, bb. 62-65, p. 219) is far more regular, the ‘oom-pah’ figuration suggesting a busy but efficient kitchen rather than a frantic salesman:

Barney Samson

21

Todd and Mrs. Lovett are not always mechanical; they both show a lyrical side to their

character in particular circumstances: when imagining an existence different to their reality. This

suggests that their mechanical efficiency is not necessarily positive. Mrs. Lovett shows this side of her

character when singing about the future, in both ‘Wait’ (12 , p. 114) and ‘By the sea’ (21 , p. 264), and

when she is ironically elegising ‘The worst pies in London’ (3 , bb. 13-38, p. 35). Todd is lyrical in ‘No

place like London’ (2 , bb. 215-249, p. 27) as he remembers his past life and in ‘My friends’ (5 , p. 51) and

‘Pretty women – Part 2’ (16A, bb. 33-75, p. 165) when he looks forward to his revenge. The chorus tell

us that Todd wants to escape from his life as it is; “Sweeney wishes the world away” (29B, bb. 102-103,

p. 369). Harold Prince suggests that “from the day the Industrial Revolution entered our lives, the

conveyor belt pulled us further and further from harmony, from humanity, from nature”.28

Sweeney Todd can be seen as the defeat of ‘the operatic’ by the mechanical. Critics have been

misguided in discussing whether or not the work is opera; rather, it is about opera as representative of

an innocence and naivety that have been lost as a result of a capitalist world of efficiency,

commercialism and profit. The dichotomy is not between opera and musical theatre but between

opera - as a signifier of something lost - and profit, its conqueror.

There seems to be an implication that capitalist society is to blame for the macabre conclusion

of the narrative. Mrs. Lovett’s amorality is guided by her wish to make a profit. When Todd kills

Pirelli, she is shocked until she realises that Pirelli was trying to blackmail Todd: “Oh well, that’s a

different matter! What a relief, dear! For a moment I thought you’d lost your marbles”. One critic has

noted that the criticism of the capitalist ‘man-eat-man’ world is made literal in the cannibalistic meat

pies. At the end, the audience are encouraged to consider the extent to which society and the world

we live in are the cause of the amorality; the idea that “Sweeney leans on the office wall” and might be

“there, beside you” (29B, bb. 112-113 and 116-117, p. 369) places the character in our world.

Harold Prince has suggested that the central concern of Sweeney Todd, “the reason that the

ensemble is used the way it is, the unifying emotion for the whole company, is shared impotence.

28 Hirsch, p. 120.

Barney Samson

22

Obviously, Sweeney’s is the most dramatic, to justify all the murders. Impotence creates rage and rage

is what is expressed most by Sweeney’s behaviour”.29 This theme can be seen in the characters’ struggle

against a system that sees profit and efficiency as its overriding virtues, and the impotence can be seen

in the music. The recurring ‘Ballad of Sweeney Todd’ is unstable and non-progressive: the first ballad

opens in F sharp minor with figuration in the dominant over a tonic pedal, and rather than a perfect

cadence each four bars, there is a movement in the bass from scale degree six to the tonic note (ex. 15).

Sweeney’s impotence is first seen in the tonal insecurity of ‘No place like London’. The melodic centre

of Anthony’s melody from b. 3 seems to be F; this contrasts with the accompaniment, which is clearly

in the tonic key of E flat. The tonic pitch is used most frequently as an approach to scale degree 2,

creating a sense that it is a flattened leading note. The instability is heightened by the madness motif

and the non-resolving lament motif’ (ex. 16), both of which are inherently cyclical. This creates a song

that is neither stable nor able to develop, as the lament motif simply repeats between bb. 19-26, until

the Beggar Woman finally interrupts. The lack of development and the harmonic instability reflect

Todd’s impotence as he arrives back in the society he blames for his troubles.

29 Zadan, p. 245.

Ex. 15: Opening of ‘The Ballad of Sweeney Todd’ (1 , bb. 1-6, p. 4)

Ex. 16: The madness (bb. 17-18) and lament motifs (bb. 19-20) in ‘No place like London (2, bb. 19-20, p. 20)

Barney Samson

23

During ‘Poor thing’, in which Mrs. Lovett tells Todd what happened to Lucy after he was

deported, his impotence is shown simply by his absence from the music. He plays no active part in the

song, speaking only as the music ends, and neither does his madness motif appear. Todd’s inability to

intervene in the events as they occurred fifteen years earlier is reflected in his inability to intervene in

the music now. In ‘My friends’, however, he seems to be empowered. The music is lyrical, consonant

and firmly grounded in the tonic. However, the triumphant ending is left unresolved and interrupted

by the arrival of the chorus ‘Ballad’, suggesting that Todd’s empowerment is illusory (ex. 17).

Similarly, the triumphant ending of ‘Epiphany’ is undermined by the dissonant chord under the word

“joy”, and the dissonance sustained when the vocal part and chords have ended (ex. 18), suggesting

that his “joy” is erroneous and will be short-lived. This seems to suggest that even though Todd now

thinks he is empowered, he is in fact still impotent.

Ex. 17: The triumphant ending of ‘My friends’, interrupted and negated (5 , bb. 76-83, p. 57)

Ex. 18: Todd’s impotence shown by the dissonant ending negating his “joy” (17, bb. 79-83, p. 179)

Barney Samson

24

It is not only Todd’s impotence that is described musically. Johanna’s lack of freedom is written into

‘Green finch and linnet bird’. The song tells of her frustration, couched in questioning terms; each

phrase ends on a pitch in the dominant chord of the local tonic.

Only in the last phrase of the song on the word “fly” does Johanna reach the tonic, but she soon

remembers that all she can do is sing, and the vocal part ends on scale degree five. The tonic is

destabilised further at the end by the minor 7th in b. 60 (ex. 19).

Ex. 19: Unstable tonic in ‘Green finch and linnet bird’ (6, bb. 59-62, p. 67).

Ex. 20: The Beggar Woman’s ‘Alms’ melody (2, bb. 28-31, p. 21)

Barney Samson

25

Lucy’s powerlessness is also described in her music, which consists of two themes, one sorrowful (ex.

20) and the second bawdy (ex. 21). Neither theme is allowed to grow – the dissonant melody of the

first section (ex. 20) descends chromatically through almost an octave, leading only to the second

theme (ex. 21), which is harmonically static and in turn leads only back to the first. Her music is never

resolved but either fades out or is interrupted.

Ex. 21: The Beggar Woman’s crude melody (2, bb. 32-35, p. 22)

Barney Samson

26

Melodrama and virtue

The opposition of the operatic and the mechanical sets up moral ambiguity because Todd

represents both the protagonist and the values that Sondheim seems to condemn. This moral

uncertainty is developed by the evocation of Victorian melodrama, vaudeville and music hall. These

dramatic modes are specifically urban, so can be seen as representing the new and the industrial, but

are also modes engaged with the idea of virtue and the changing morality of the era, reaffirming the

importance of ‘good’ in a secular, industrial society. The idea of the vaudeville is explicitly evoked in

the ‘Parlor Songs’, a pastiche of popular Victorian music: “I went through a book of English folk songs

and tried to figure out: All right, do one about a maiden; and then do one about something that has

many choruses – like ‘Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of St. Clemens”.30 The productions of the

Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, one of the earliest manifestations of French melodrama, were originally

based on a popular French puppet character and social commentator representing workers’ rights.

This tradition has been seen as central to Sweeney Todd; Sondheim has said of Bond’s play “I had

heard it was Grand Guignol and it was something that just knocked me out”.31

Just as opera can be seen more usefully as a topic than as a generic description, so can

melodrama. Singer describes melodrama as a work that may contain pathos, extreme emotional

states, moral polarisation, implausible plot twists, or sensational action.32 While Sweeney Todd

contains pathos, violent appeals to the emotions and coups de théâtre, these devices do not evoke

melodrama any more than opera. However, sensationalism is more particular to a melodramatic

conception and is seen in Sweeney Todd in the characters’ willing propensity to murderousness and

violence. This is most apparent in the Act II ‘Johanna’ when Todd calmly kills his customers as he

sings nostalgically about “My little dove, my sweet Johanna” (20, bb. 43-45, p. 248). The melodramatic

idiom can also be seen in the vernacular social milieu, the mixture of horror and comedy, and the

30 Sondheim quoted in Horowitz, p. 143. Sondheim has seen the comic songs as tending “towards a music-hall tradition” (Hirsch, p. 123). 31 Zadan, p. 243. 32 Singer (2001) Melodrama and Modernity, pp. 44-49.

Barney Samson

27

“seductions, kidnappings, grisly murders, sinister tombs, yawning graves and last-minute escapes”.33

While the melodramatic must be seen “less as a genre than an imaginative mode, a coherent mode of

imagining and representing”, these features demonstrate that a gesture is being made towards the

melodramatic and that it should play a part in an examination of the work.34

Having set up the notion of melodrama, the concern of the work is not to ‘be’ a melodrama, but

to use the generic connotations it involves: to manipulate the audience’s “horizons of expectation”.35

The melodramatic mode, according to Peter Brooks, originated as a response to the loss of religion

after the French Revolution and as such, the purpose of works was to reassure the audience that good

always triumphs over evil.36 This moral reassurance is absent from Sweeney Todd. Neither of the

main characters is morally clear-cut; the audience may sympathize with Todd but he is far from a

virtuous hero. While Mrs. Lovett’s ‘softer side’ is revealed in her love for Todd, she is prepared to

condone murder in order to make money. The only characters we can say are ‘good’ are Johanna and

Anthony, neither of whom ‘triumphs’: Johanna loses both her parents even as she finds them, and

Anthony rescues Johanna but loses his friend Todd (who has been deceiving him all along).

For Sondheim, “what the show is really about is obsession. I was using the show as a metaphor

for any kind of obsession”.37 The suggestion that Todd’s obsession with revenge is harmful is explicit in

the final ‘Ballad of Sweeney Todd’: “To seek revenge may lead to Hell” (29B, bb. 150-151, p. 374). This

message is supported by the connection made between Sweeney’s obsession and death, as noted by

Menton.38 During the ‘Prologue’, Todd enters out of the grave and the chorus announce that

“Sweeney heard music that nobody heard” (1 , bb. 108-109, p. 12), suggesting that he is supernatural.

The connection between Todd and death is also created through the use of the Dies Irae plainsong

melody, which represents the Day of Judgement in the requiem mass, as the basis for part of the 33 Gordon (1992), Art Isn’t Easy: The Theatre of Stephen Sondheim, p. 208. 34 Brooks, p. vii. 35 The ‘horizon of expectation’ is a “frame that consequently affects the decisions made by the composer in writing the work and the listener in hearing the work” (Kallberg, p. 243). 36 Brooks, p. 82. 37 Zadan, p. 245. 38 Menton, (2000) ‘Maternity, Madness and Art in the theatre of Stephen Sondheim’, p. 72.

Barney Samson

28

‘Ballad’ sections (ex. 22). This can be read as representing both Todd’s fated death and his position as

a bringer of retribution on others. Mollin has pointed out that Todd takes on the role of a god in

casting judgement on the whole of humankind. In this sense, a double meaning can be seen in the

song title ‘Epiphany’; as well as Todd’s realisation, it is the manifestation of a divine being.39

Todd’s reaction to the injustice done him does not conform to what an audience are likely to expect

from a melodramatic hero; rather than justice he wants revenge. Sweeney Todd does not contain a

liberation of virtue; the ‘hero’ gets his revenge on the Judge and the Beadle but both Todd and Lucy

die along with his victims; Sondheim plays with the generic convention that virtue is rewarded.

Sondheim clearly does not want to give his audience easy answers about morality, but to force them to

question who is acting on the side of ‘right’.

The idea that Todd’s obsession is evil conflicts with the way material is presented to elicit

sympathy for him. The audience experience the narrative subjectively from Todd’s perspective and

therefore empathise and identify with him; he is presented as the hero. This is demonstrated by his

powerlessness in the face of the Judge, which Mrs. Lovett points out: “You’re going to -- get ‘em? You?

A bleeding little nobody of a runaway convict? Don’t make me laugh” (dialogue, p. 51). The musical

depictions of Todd’s impotence discussed above also create sympathy for him. Mrs. Lovett, having

joined the chorus after her death, claims “everyone does it [seeks revenge], if seldom as well” (29B, bb.

152-153, p. 374), which seems to suggest some acceptance, if not an admiration, of Todd’s actions. In

39 Moll in, p. 407. While it is notable that ‘Tod’ is German for ‘death, it seems unlikely that this is significant, as the etymology of the British surname Todd suggests that it means ‘fox’.

Ex. 22: The Dies Irae plainsong melody and ‘Prologue: The Ballad of Sweeney Todd’ (1 , bb. 59-62, p. 8)

Barney Samson

29

fact, it is suggested that ‘virtue’ or ‘good’ is a point of view rather than an absolute. While the audience

are told that a society based on greed and selfishness (seen in the actions of the Judge, Mrs Lovett and

Todd) is harmful, the chorus often seem to quite literally play ‘Devil’s advocate’, urging Sweeney to

sink his razor “in the rosy skin of righteousness”. Sondheim seems to want Todd to simultaneously

elicit sympathy and represent the harmful quality of revenge.

However, it must be noted that this account of the melodramatic in Sweeney Todd focuses on

the narrative of Todd the hero and Judge Turpin the villain, and this is not the only melodramatic

narrative that can be seen. The story of Johanna, Anthony and the Judge can be seen as a conventional

melodrama consisting of stock characters, plot twists, clear moral polarisations and a happy ending. If

one considers Anthony and Johanna the heroes, they fit perfectly a scheme of virtue suppressed and

finally unambiguously victorious. The fact that the central characters do not fit into this unequivocal

moral matrix suggests that the idea of virtue and revenge in Sweeny Todd is intended to be more

complex. The use of the melodramatic as a topos, then, sets up an expectation that virtue will triumph

and be rewarded. The fact that such moral certainty is avoided suggests that Sondheim’s concern is to

question the validity of any unambiguous moral conclusions.

Barney Samson

30

Conclusion

Mark Eder has argued that the multiple messages in Sweeney Todd cause a “confusion of

purpose… The effort to fuse this Grand Guignol with a Brechtian style of sardonic social commentary

doesn’t work”.40 Eder’s argument is persuasive; the attempt to create both audience involvement and a

social commentary is problematic. First one must ask: was this really what was attempted? Sondheim

appears to have been concerned primarily with the idea of the horror film.41 However, for Prince a

higher social message was necessary: “As a director I needed to see metaphor, to find some way of

justifying the revenge. When I began to think of Sweeney’s revenge as being against the class system…

I began to find a way to get inside the material”.42 Thus the work did have dual ‘purposes’ as a thriller

and as a form of social commentary. The result is a work that is unconventional in its combination of

emotive music and distancing effects, but that does ‘work’ because, as Prince pointed out to Sondheim

and Wheeler, “the metaphor [is] submerged in the material. Those who want to get it will get it”.43

Sondheim recognized the presence of social commentary but it was not his primary concern. It

became a major part of the work because “Hal [Prince] just chose to emphasize it”. 44

My discussions of opera and melodrama are intended not to characterise the work as ‘an opera’

or ‘a melodrama’, but to draw attention to how audience’s expectations are conditioned by the operatic

and melodramatic topoi. Each brings with it a set of connotations that Sondheim manipulated. The

operatic as a means of contrast with the mechanical, industrial Todd, facilitates the idea of the work

presenting a social message. The melodramatic mode is employed in a different way but to a similar

purpose. Melodramas rely for their meaning on a clear affirmation of virtue; the use of apparently

melodramatic characters and circumstances allows Sondheim to introduce a moral dimension to the

work by subverting the typical message.

40 Mark Eder speaking in 1979, cited in Zadan, p. 258. 41 This is not to say that Sondheim’s sole concern was audience involvement; his interest in revenge is evident in the lyrics of ‘No place like London’ (2 , bb. 205-207, p. 26): “At the top of the hole sit the privileged few, Making mock of the vermin in the lower zoo”. 42 Prince, quoted in Hirsch, p. 120. 43 Prince, quoted in Hirsch, p. 120. 44 Quoted in Gottfr ied (1993) Sondheim, p. 118.

Barney Samson

31

It is clear that different audiences have very different conceptions of what to expect from a work

that they perceive to be of a particular genre. For example, it can be argued that opera audiences,

more than Broadway audiences, are used to dealing in psychologically disturbing, dark or violent

plots.45 This would suggest that the rape scene in ‘Poor thing’ and the explicit musical depiction of

masturbation in the Judge’s song ‘Johanna’ are likely to be relatively shocking to a Broadway audience.

Angela Lansbury, who played Mrs. Lovett in the original production, noted that the first preview

audiences were “sometimes unresponsive and sometimes shocked… I never, ever realised how put off

people would be by the blood… I think they were awed by the presentation, which fascinated and

interested them, but they didn’t like what they were being asked to stomach”.46 For the 1979 Broadway

production, the Judge's Song was cut; it seems fair to suggest that this was in order to avoid

alienating audiences rather than simply “for the sake of a comfortable playing length”.47

Different styles of production can emphasise different aspects of a work. This is emphasised by

Paul Libin, the co-producer of the small-scale 1989 Circle in the Square production: “[watching the

Broadway production felt like] watching a Frankenstein show… It was outrageous, and the savagery

was so overstated that you never got the pathos”.48 The York Theatre Company’s 1989 environmental

production of Sweeney Todd on a New York basketball court brought out an element that had not

been evident in the Broadway production because “New York City today, with its homelessness and

municipal corruption scandals, feels a lot more like the show’s grim nineteenth-century London

setting than it did a decade ago”.49 Such a contemporary social resonance might enhance the social

message of the work. Sondheim has noted the extent to which the production affects a work’s

meaning: “I’ve always defined opera as anything done in an opera house in front of an opera audience.

It’s the audience’s expectations that define the performance”.50

45 Oedipus Rex and Salome, for example, contain subject matter unlikely to be found in the ‘musical’. 46 Cited in Zadan, p. 254. 47 Gordon, J (1992), p. 231. In fact, Harold Prince has made it clear that he wanted the Judge’s song cut because: “it was so explicit, and I thought it was pretty gruesome” (quoted in Citron, p. 254); Sondheim feels strongly that it should be included for characterisation (Horowitz, p. 136). 48 Cited in Zadan, p. 382. 49 Stephen Holden (New York Times ), cited in Zadan, p. 380. 50 Sams, J (1993) ‘Stephen Sondheim interviewed by Jeremy Sams’, p. 34.

Barney Samson

32

John Simon has criticised the work for being a “mélange des genres… Sweeney Todd is like a

mad dinner party at which the dessert interrupts the hors d’oeuvre and the pousse-café is poured into

the soup”.51 While it is true that widely disparate and divergent elements are fused in unconventional

ways, this is done for a purpose. Sweeney Todd is not meant to be an opera, a musical, a melodrama,

or a comedy. Rather, all these genres and modes are evoked and manipulated in order to create a work

that is thrilling, involving the audience, yet at the same time challenging them.52 As Rockwell has

argued, “what lends Sondheim’s work its fascination is its very tension between art and

entertainment… He may be torn, and his conflicts may inhibit his art. But the very essence of his art is

conflict, so that to do away with the tension would be to do away with the art”.53 Just as genre relies on

an interaction between the composer and the audience, so does the meaning of the work; Sweeney

Todd can be considered as a horror story in which to immerse oneself, as a social critique, or as an

exploration of the concept of virtue. Sondheim challenges the audience to consider the morality of

love, revenge, greed and desire, yet simultaneously thoroughly involves them in the diegesis by

creating high tension and suspense. The result is a work that strikes a delicate but illuminating

balance between ‘serious’, intelligent art and thrilling entertainment.

51 John Simon, cited in Gordon (1992), p. 220. 52 While the social message was the overriding concern of Harold Prince, that is not to say that Sondheim was not concerned with interpretation of the work. In fact, his intention was that the work should explore morality of revenge and the idea of virtue. 53 Rockwell , (1983) All-American Music: Composition in the Late 20th Century, p. 220.

Barney Samson

33

Bibliography

Adler, T (2000) ‘The Sung and the Said: Literary Value in the Musical Dramas of Stephen

Sondheim’ in Goodhart, S (20o0) Reading Stephen Sondheim. New York: Garland Publishing.

Adler,T (1978) ‘The Music Dramas of Stephen Sondheim: Some Critical Approaches’. Journal of

Popular Culture, 12, 513-525.

Altman, R (ed.) (1981) Genre: The Musical. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul in assoc. with the

British Film Institute.

Banfield, S (1993) The Broadway Musicals of Stephen Sondheim. Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press.

Banfield, S 'Stephen (Joshua) Sondheim’, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 16 January

2006), http://www.grovemusic.com.

Banfield, S (1994) ‘Bit by Bit: Stephen Banfield Finds Five Ways of Looking at Musicals’ The

Musical Times, 135(1814), 220-223.

Bennett, A and Royle, N (eds) (1999) Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory.

Harlow: Prentice Hall.

Block, G (1993) ‘The Broadway Canon from Show Boat to West Side Story and the European

Operatic Ideal.’ The Journal of Musicology, 11(4), 525-544.

Blyton, C (1984) ‘Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd – The Case for the defence.’ Tempo, 149, 19-26.

Bond, C (1974) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. London: (s.l.).

Bordman, G (1981) American Operetta: From H. M. S. Pinafore to Sweeney Todd. Oxford:

Oxford University Press.

Brooks, P (1976) The Melodramatic Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Citron, S (2001) Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber: The New Musical. London: Chatto and Windus.

Dahlhaus, C (1987) trans. Puffet , D and Clayton, A ‘New Music and the Problem of Musical

Genre’ in Schoenberg and the New Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Barney Samson

34

Dubrow, H (1982) Genre: The Critical Idiom. London: Methuen.

Engel, L (1967) The American Musical Theatre: A Consideration. New York: Macmillan.

Fowler, A (1982) Kinds Of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes.

Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Fraser, B (2000) ‘Revisiting Greece: The Sondheim Chorus’ in Gordon, J (1997) Stephen

Sondheim: A Casebook. New York: Garland Publishing.

Goodhart, S (20o0) Reading Stephen Sondheim. New York: Garland Publishing.

Gordon, J (1992) Art Isn’t Easy: The Theatre of Stephen Sondheim. New York: Da Capo.

Gordon, J (1997) Stephen Sondheim: A Casebook. New York: Garland Publishing.

Gottfr ied, M (1993) Sondheim. New York: Harry N Abrams, Inc.

Hepokoski, J (1989) ‘Genre And Content In Mid-Century Verdi: Addio Del Assato’ in Cambridge

Opera Journal, 1(3), 249-76.

Herbert, T (1989) ‘Sondheim’s Technique: Stephen Sondheim interviewed by Trevor Herbert’ in

Driver, P and Christ iansen, R (eds.) (1989) Music and Text. Contemporary Music

Review, vol. 5. Chur and London.

Hirsch, F (1989) Harold Prince and the American Musical Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Hirst , D (1985) ‘The American Musical and the American Dream: From Show Boat to Sondheim’

New Theatre Quarterly, 1, 24-38.

Hobbes, N (2004) ‘Nick Hobbes looks at what inspired Stephen Sondheim to write Sweeney

Todd’ in the 2004 Trafalgar Studios production programme.

Horowitz, M (2003) Sondheim on music: minor details and major decisions. Oxford: Scarecrow in

association with the Library of Congress.

Kallberg, J (1988) ‘The Rhetoric of Genre: Chopin’s Nocturne in G Minor’ in 19th-Century Music.

11(3), 238-260.

Barney Samson

35

Marchesani, J (2000) ‘Arresting Development: Law, Love and the name-of-the-Father’ in

Goodhart, S (20o0) Reading Stephen Sondheim. New York: Garland Publishing.

McEntee, A (2000) ‘The Funeral of “Follies’: Stephen Sondheim and the Razing of American

Musical Theatre’ in Goodhart, S (20o0) Reading Stephen Sondheim. New York: Garland

Publishing.

Menton, A (2000) ‘Maternity, Madness and Art in the theatre of Stephen Sondheim’ in Goodhart,

S (2000) Reading Stephen Sondheim. New York: Garland Publishing.

Micznik, V (1994) ‘Mahler and the Power of Genre’ in Journal Of Musicology, 12(7). 117-151.

Mil ler , S (2000) ‘Assassins and the Concept Musical’ in Gordon, J (1997) Stephen Sondheim: A

Casebook. New York: Garland Publishing.

Moll in, A (1991) ‘Mayhem and Morality in Sweeney Todd’ American Music, 9, 405-417.

Palmer, J (1978) Thrillers: Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre. London: Edward Arnold.

Pierron, A ‘House of Horrors’ Grand Guignol (Accessed 25 February 2006),

http://www.grandguignol.com.

Puccio, P and Stoddart, S (2000) ‘”It Takes Two” A Duet on duets in Follies’ in Goodhart, S

(20o0) Reading Stephen Sondheim. New York: Garland Publishing.

Rahil l , F (1967) The World of Melodrama. University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press.

Rockwell , J (1983) All-American Music: Composition in the Late 20th Century. New York: Knopf.

Salzman, E (1979) ‘Whither American Music Theater?’ The Musical Quarterly, 65(2), 230-244.

Sams, J (1993) ‘Stephen Sondheim interviewed by Jeremy Sams in Platform Papers: 5. Musicals…

and Sondheim. 1995 Royal National Theatre.

Savran, D (1990) ‘Stephen Sondheim: An Interview with David Savran”. Sunday in the Park with

George, text of the musical, ix-xxvi. London.

Schlesinger, J (2000) ‘Psychology, Evil and Sweeney Todd, or “Don’t I know you, Mister?”’ in

Gordon, J (1997) Stephen Sondheim: A Casebook. New York: Garland Publishing.

Simon, J (1979) ‘A Little Knife Music’, New York, 19 March, p74.

Barney Samson

36

Singer, B (2001) Melodrama and Modernity. New York: Columbia University Press.

Smith, J (1973) Melodrama. London: Methuen.

Sondheim, S (1990) ‘Answering questions from the audience’ in Platform Papers: 5. Musicals… and

Sondheim. 1995. Royal National Theatre.

Sondheim, S (1981) Sweeney Todd. New York: Revelation music Publishing Corporation and

Rilting Music, Inc.

Sutcl i f fe , T (1987) ‘Sondheim and the Musical.’ Musical Times, 128, 487-490.

Swain, J (1990) The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

Traubner, R (1984) Operetta: A Theatrical History. London: Gollancz.

Verdino-Süllwood, Carla Maria (1990) ‘Opera, Operetta or Musical? Vanishing distinctions in

20th Century Music Drama’. Opera Journal, 23(4), 31-43.

Wilmeth, D and Miller , T (eds.) (1993) The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wittke, P (1982) ‘The American Musical Theater (With an Aside on Popular Music)’ The Musical

Quarterly, 68(2), 274-282.

Wittke, P (1980) Review of Sweeney Todd. Musical Quarterly, 66, 309-314.

Young, K (2000) ‘”Every Day a Little Death” Stephen Sondheim’s Un-Musicalling of Marriage’ in

Goodhart, S (20o0) Reading Stephen Sondheim. New York: Garland Publishing.

Zadan, C (1990) Sondheim & Co. London: Nick Hern Books.

Discography

Sondheim, S (1979) Sweeney Todd: 1979 Original Broadway Cast Recording. Double Compact

Disc (Released 1987). New York: RCA 3379-2-RC.