Helena Symphony stages Sondheim’s operatic thriller ‘Sweeney Todd’

Marga Lincoln For the Independent Record

The Helena Symphony presents a fully staged production of Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning musical thriller “Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Helena Civic Center.

Guaranteed to rivet your eyes to the stage, this operatic musical set in Victorian London tells the story of Benjamin Barker, a barber who is falsely imprisoned by Judge Turpin, who lusts after Barker’s wife.

Fifteen years later, Barker escapes from prison and comes to London, under the assumed name Sweeney Todd, searching for his wife, Lucy, and daughter, Johanna.

He learns from Mrs. Nellie Lovett, who runs a local pie shop, that Lucy took poison.

The judge is raising his daughter as his own child, but also covets her as a lover.

An enraged Todd takes up his barbering tools and begins to wreak vengeance.

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As to Mrs. Lovett?

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Music director and conductor Allan R. Scott said he has a special relationship to this opera and to Sondheim, whom he worked with for years.

Scott’s conducted multiple performances of Sondheim productions, including more

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