Get Ready for Murderous Musical Thrills: 'Sweeney Todd' Is Playing Melbourne in September 2024
Victorian Opera is staging Steven Sondheim's Tony-winning Broadway and West End smash — and maybe don't eat meat pies before heading along.
Enjoying dinner and a show is a time-honoured theatregoing tradition, but when spring arrives in the Victorian capital in 2024, one menu item mightn't prove so popular. If you've seen Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on the stage before, or caught the 2007 Tim Burton (Wednesday)-directed movie adaptation, then you'll know which dish to avoid when it comes to Arts Centre Melbourne. In this Steven Sondheim-penned musical thriller, meat pies are packed with quite the unwanted ingredients.
This murderous tale of slitting throats, then stuffing body parts into baked pastries will play the venue from Saturday, September 14–Saturday, September 21, in a production by the Victorian Opera and New Zealand Opera. Whether you're keen for your first date with music theatre's iconic villain and his partner-in-crime Mrs Lovett, or you've seen see it before and can't wait to repeat the feat again, expect a killer show.
Ben Mingay (Shrek the Musical, Frayed, Pirates of Penzance, Packed to the Rafters) is taking up the razor and polishing people off as the titular Sweeney, while Antoinette Halloran (Mary and Max, Macbeth, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll) will join him as Lovett. The production also includes the Victorian Opera Chamber Orchestra helping to perform classic tracks such as 'No Place Like London', 'The Ballad Of Sweeney' and the always-fitting 'The Worst Pies in London'.
Victorian Opera Artistic Director Stuart Maunder will direct this Melbourne season of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
"I love this piece. The terror, the thrills. For all its melodrama, blood and gore, this masterpiece of music theatre tells a universal human story; revenge, obsession, and lust, yes — but also pain, yearning and even love. This is Sondheim at his most powerful, moving and terrifying. And what a cast, I am in awe," he advises.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street doesn't just date back to the late, great Sondheim's Tony-winning Broadway and West End smash. Before that, it was a play in 1973 — and it had hit stages, screens and pages, prior, too.
The homicidal barber first appeared in the 19th century, in 1846–47 penny dreadful serial The String of Pearls: A Romance, and has just kept slashing his way through popular culture since, novels, ballets, radio plays, comics and TV shows included.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street will play Arts Centre Melbourne from Saturday, September 14–Saturday, September 21, 2024. Head to the Victorian Opera website for further details and tickets.
Images: Daniel Boud.
