STORIES don’t come much more melodramatic or gory than Sweeney Todd, a popular penny dreadful-style tale of Victorian times, made famous for a new generation by Stephen Sondheim with his brilliant musical re-creation of the story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Now comic opera specialists Opera Della Luna come to Bath Theatre Royal with a period version, Sweeney Todd – A Victorian Melodrama, from Tuesday 23rd to Saturday 27th July.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the company of actor-singers, with an 11-strong orchestra, recreates the original melodrama, restoring the musical element of sensational storytelling with music penned by British opera composers of the Victorian age.

The tale of Sweeney Todd first appeared on the stage in East London in 1847 at the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, as a melodrama: The String of Pearls, based on a popular “penny dreadful” serialised story. Its success and fame grew steadily and by the 1860s it was being staged all over the country. Opera della Luna invites audiences to come and be shocked, and, importantly, to hiss the villain – the notorious Fiend of Fleet Street!

The cast includes Nick Dwyer as Sweeney Todd, Caroline Kennedy as Tobias Ragg, Lynsey Docherty as Mrs Lovett and Cecily Maybush, Madeline Robinson as Johanna Oakley, Will Kenning as Jarvis Williams and Ben the Beefeater, Paul Featherstone as Rev. Lupin and Jonas Fogg, and Peter van Hulle as Mark Ingestrie and Jean Parmine.

Paul Featherstone, was last seen at the Theatre Royal playing Sir Joseph Porter, alongside Wiltshire-based Lynsey Docherty as Cousin Hebe, who both return to Bath for the second time this year after touring to the city in HMS Pinafore with Opera della Luna six months ago.

During the last three decades Opera della Luna has staged many operas across the country, including the British premieres of The Queen’s Lace Handkerchief by Johann Strauss and Three Decembers by Jake Heggie. The company regularly performs at Buxton, Salisbury and Iford Festivals, and at Wilton’s Music Hall in London.
Sweeney Todd: A Victorian Melodrama is directed by the company’s artistic director, Jeff Clarke, conducted by Michael Waldron and designed by Elroy Ashmore.

Jeff Clarke says: “Sweeney Todd had music when it was first performed, but all those scores have long been lost. When the Grecian Saloon in City Road closed, one of the many East End theatres that would have presented Sweeney, its library of music went to the Drury Lane archive now in the British Library. Although it contains the music for a number of melodramas, Sweeney Todd has not survived.

“Both the Grecian Theatre and the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, which commissioned the first stage version of Sweeney, permanently employed orchestras of ten to 12 players. That is why we have commissioned a score for 11 musicians for our production. We have turned to theatre music of the period, or rather music by theatre composers of the period: Michael William Balfe, who wrote many English operas for Drury Lane, and Julius Benedict, who was resident musical director at Drury Lane and wrote a number of orchestral scores. We are using themes from their works and integrating them into the production in the way that we see other music was used in melodramas of the time.”

Founded in 1994, Opera della Luna takes its name from Haydn’s operatic setting of Goldoni’s farce Il mondo della luna. The company presents innovative productions and adaptations of Gilbert and Sullivan and other comic operas and operettas in English as well as concerts, Christmas pantomimes and festival productions.

Photographs of Nick Dwyer as Sweeney Todd, Lynsey Docherty as Mrs Lovett with Sweeney Todd, and Madeline Robinson as Johanna by Andy Paradise; photograph of Will Kenning as Jarvis Williams by Nathan Cox.