Show Pics: Terfel’s Sweeney with Friedman at RFH

Welsh opera star Bryn Terfel will open tonight (5 July 2007) in a concert staging of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd at the newly refurbished Royal Festival Hall, and Whatsonstage.com is pleased to bring you exclusive photos from rehearsals.

The concert version will have four performances only, from 5 to 7 July 2007, as part of the celebratory reopening season at the RFH, which has closed for the past two years while undergoing a £111 million refurbishment (See News, 29 May 2007).

A thriller set in Victorian London and based on the infamous tale of the vengefully bloodthirsty barber and his pie-making proprietress, Sweeney Todd’s starry cast includes Maria Friedman (Mrs Lovett), Phillip Quast (Judge Turpin), Daniel Evans (Tobias), Rosemary Ashe (Beggar Woman), Emma Williams (Johanna), Steve Elias (The Beadle) and Daniel Boys (Anthony).

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Sweeney Todd premiered in New York in 1979 in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring Len Cariou as Todd and Angela Lansbury as Mrs Lovett and which won eight Tony Awards. It has music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler.

At the Southbank Centre, David Freeman directs. The lead performers are accompanied by the Maida Vale Singers and Guildford School of Acting’s chorus. Stephen Barlow directs the London Philharmonic Orchestra.