Friday, October 31, 2025 • 7:30 PM
Sunday, November 2, 2025 • 2:30 PM
Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim • Book by Hugh Wheeler
From an adaptation by Christopher Bond
The Egyptian Theatre
Run Time: 2 hours and 45 minutes, including intermission
Metropolitan opera star, American baritone Jeff Mattsey returns to Opera Idaho making his role debut as Sweeney Todd!
Just in time for HALLOWEEN, Opera Idaho presents its first fully-produced musical: Sondheim’s intense tale of crazy love and obsession set in gritty Victorian London and filled with razor-sharp wit and a haunting musical score.
Jeff Mattsey
Baritone
Program Notes
Sweeney Todd has evolved dramatically since his first appearance in Victorian-era fiction, growing from a sensational character in penny dreadfuls (a type of horror periodical from the era) into the complex antihero of modern musical theater. The story originated in The String of Pearls, serialized during the winter of 1846–47. Set in 1785, it featured Sweeney Todd as its principal villain and included many of the plot elements used in later versions. The tale was so popular that a stage adaptation appeared before the final installment was even printed. By the 1870s, after multiple editions and adaptations, Sweeney Todd had become a familiar figure to most Victorians.
Nearly a century later, playwright Christopher Bond reimagined the character in his 1970 play, adding a psychological backstory and tragic motivation. In this version, Todd is a victim of a corrupt judge who exiles him and assaults his wife, setting the stage for Todd’s descent into revenge. Stephen Sondheim saw Bond’s play in 1973 and immediately began developing it into a musical. Originally, Sondheim envisioned the show in an intimate, shadowy space where audiences would feel directly implicated in the horror. But over time, the piece has proven its strength across a wide range of productions—from chamber stagings to grand-scale revivals—each highlighting different facets of its psychological depth.
Sondheim’s adaptation didn’t just bring Bond’s version to the stage, it used music to deepen the psychological weight and intensity of the story. Over 80 percent of the production is sung or underscored, with each musical element intricately tied to the next. Sondheim’s score functions like a tightly engineered machine, advancing character and plot with precision. Nowhere else in his body of work is music used so thoroughly to drive the drama forward.
Content Warning:
This show features depictions of death, graphic violence, rape, suicidal ideation, death by suicide, animal death, and cursing.
The Story
A chilling chorus sets the scene in 1846 London, where a factory whistle screams and the citizens beckon the audience to witness a tale of blood and vengeance
Sweeney Todd, once known as Benjamin Barker, returns to London with a young sailor, Anthony Hope, who saved him at sea. Sweeney reveals he was falsely exiled by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who coveted his wife, Lucy. On Fleet Street, Sweeney visits Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop, where she tells him Lucy was raped by the Judge and later poisoned herself. Their daughter, Johanna, is now the Judge’s ward. Mrs. Lovett, recognizing Sweeney’s true identity, returns his barber razors. He vows revenge.
Meanwhile, Anthony glimpses Johanna in a window and falls in love. He tries to connect with her, but the Judge and his enforcer, the Beadle, keep him away. Sweeney reestablishes himself as a barber by besting a flamboyant rival, Pirelli, in a public shaving contest. When Pirelli later threatens to expose Sweeney’s identity, Sweeney kills him.
Judge Turpin, obsessed with Johanna and planning to marry her, agrees to a shave at Sweeney’s shop. Sweeney prepares to kill him but is interrupted by Anthony, who blurts out his plan to elope with Johanna. The Judge storms off. Furious, Sweeney snaps. He declares no one is safe from his blade. Mrs. Lovett suggests using his victims in her meat pies. The two form a gruesome partnership.
As business booms, Anthony discovers Johanna has been locked in an asylum. Sweeney helps him pose as a wigmaker to infiltrate it. Meanwhile, Mrs. Lovett, now guardian to Pirelli’s assistant Toby, tries to keep the boy from discovering their secret. But Toby grows suspicious and is eventually locked in the bake house cellar.
Johanna kills the asylum director during her escape. Anthony brings her to Sweeney’s shop and hides her while he fetches transport. In the chaos, the Beggar Woman reappears, warning of danger. Sweeney, not recognizing her as his wife, Lucy, kills her to silence her.
When the Judge returns, Sweeney reveals his true identity as Benjamin Barker before slitting his throat. Johanna narrowly escapes the same fate. In the bake house, Sweeney realizes the Beggar Woman was Lucy all along. Enraged at Mrs. Lovett’s deception—she knew Lucy lived but said she was dead—he kills her by throwing her into the oven.
Sweeney mourns Lucy’s body until Toby, traumatized and white-haired, appears behind him and slits his throat.
In the epilogue, the chorus warns that the thirst for revenge only leads to destruction. Sweeney rises, glares at the audience, and slams the oven door shut.
