Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber

by Block, Geoffrey

  In the case of Sweeney Todd, Angela Lansbury in the role of Mrs. Lovett was an actor who could also sing, but other roles could profit from a singing actor who also possessed a trained voice. It is not the voice that defines the work as an opera or musical but how the work weighs the balance between words and music.

  In an interview with David Savran about a decade after Sweeney Todd Sondheim expressed his lingering distaste for opera: “I’ve never liked opera and I’ve never understood it. Most opera doesn’t make theatrical sense to me. Things go on forever. I’m not a huge fan of the human voice. I like song, dramatic song. I like music and lyrics together, telling a story.”45 Despite this fundamental antipathy, Sondheim has also readily acknowledged that after seeing a production of Bond’s transformation of George Dibdin Pitt’s Sweeney Todd play of 1847 his original intention was to make an opera out of Bond’s entire script rather than a more traditional cut-down libretto version of the play. When Sondheim had reached only page five of Bond’s text after twenty minutes of music, however, he turned to Night Music librettist Wheeler and director Prince to convert the work into a musical, but a musical with a lot of through-singing (almost like an opera).

  Bernard Herrmann and the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath)

  The sheer amount of music—nearly four hundred pages in the published vocal score—as well as its continuity was also greatly influenced by another subgenre, the musical film score. Sondheim has often referred to his intense enjoyment of Hangover Square (1945), a thriller about a composer who becomes deranged when he hears certain high pitches and, in a stupor induced by these sounds, unwittingly murders people. At the end of the film the composer-serial killer, played by the legendary film noir star Laird Cregar, collapses while performing the piano concerto he was composing during his saner moments. The film score, including the concerto, was composed by Bernard Herrmann, who during this period was also creating masterful scores for director Orson Welles’s masterpiece Citizen Kane and several suspense thrillers in the 1950s and 60s directed by Alfred Hitchcock, including Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho. The film, and especially Herrmann’s score, had a powerful effect on the fifteen-year-old Sondheim, and since that time he had “always wanted to [write] an answer to Hangover Square.”46 In the end, the “Musical Thriller” Sweeney Todd, the first show idea generated by Sondheim himself, offered its rich and often continuous score, not to emulate opera, but to emulate film:

  “What I wanted to write,” Sondheim says, “was a horror movie. The whole point of the thing is that it’s a background score for a horror film, which is what I intended to do and what it is. All those chords, and that whole kind of harmonic structure … the use of electronic sounds and the loud crashing organ had a wonderful Gothic feeling. It had to be unsettling, scary, and very romantic. In fact, there’s a chord I kept using throughout, which is sort of a personal joke, because it’s a chord that occurred in every Bernard Herrmann score.”47

  In a later interview Sondheim elaborates on the connections between Hermann’s score for Hangover Square and the musical requirements for a “musical thriller.” His remarks reinforce the position that the plentiful score of Sweeney Todd was due more to the requirements of mid-twentieth-century American horror film scoring and harmony than the demands of nineteenth-century European opera:

  I wanted to pay homage to him [Herrmann] with this show, because I had realized that in order to scare people, which [is] what Sweeney Todd is about, the only way to you can do it, considering that the horrors out on the street are so much greater than anything you can do on the stage, is to keep music going all the time. That’s the principle of suspense sequences in movies, and Bernard Hermann was a master in that field. So Sweeney Todd not only has a lot of singing, it has a lot of underscoring. It’s infused with music, to keep the audience in a state of tension, to make them forget they’re in a theater and to prevent them from separating themselves from the action. I based a lot of the score on a specific chord that Herrmann uses in almost all his film work, and spun it out from that. That and the “Dies Irae,” which is one of my favorite tunes, and is full of menace.48

  Like West Side Story, the score of Sweeney Todd demonstrates impressively intricate musical connections that are dramatically meaningful. Although he acknowledged some indecision about the conclusion of the work, the idea that major characters would be given distinctive themes and the decision to have these themes “collide in the end” was present almost from conception. This is how Sondheim explained his procedure: “I determined that it would be fun for Sweeney Todd to start each character with a specific musical theme and develop all that character’s music out of that theme, so that each song would depend in the true sense of the word on the last one. Sweeney’s opening scene dictates his next song, and so on. It’s a handy compositional principle, and it seemed to me that it would pay off very nicely at the end.”49

  In order to understand how this compositional principle works it is necessary to introduce the Gregorian chant Dies irae (literally the Latin for “Day of Wrath” and more conventionally Judgment Day), a thirteenth-century text and melody that became officially incorporated into the Catholic Requiem Mass, the mass for the dead, by the sixteenth century. It is this chant that Sondheim chose as the starting point for Sweeney’s theme and for the opening choral number, “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” sung by a chorus to help the audience “attend the tale of Sweeney Todd” and reprised to introduce various episodes throughout the story. With its connections to death and the Last Judgment and its musical resonances, the theme has been especially favored in the last two hundred years from Berlioz to Rachmaninoff. It was an inspired choice to serve as the embodiment of a character who by the end of the first act “Epiphany” will take it upon himself to impart his demented vengeful judgment on the world. On the stage, “Epiphany” provided an opportunity for Sweeney to break the fourth wall and invites the audience to “Come and visit your good friend Sweeney” and to get a shave and “welcome to the grave.” The Sweeney in Burton’s film extends this idea and, in a fantasy sequence, leaves his shop, roams the streets like a ghost visible only to the audience, and invites unaware passersby to get their shaves and his vengeance.

  Sondheim explained why he chose the chant and offers information about how he used it: “I always found the Dies Irae moving and scary at the same time,” says Sondheim. “One song, ‘My Friends,’ was influenced by it … it was the inversion of the opening of the Dies Irae. And although it was never actually quoted in the show, the first release of ‘The Ballad of Sweeney Todd’ was a sequence of the Dies Irae—up a third, which changed the harmonic relationship of the melodic notes to each other.”50

  The following set of examples (see Example 15.1 on the next page) begins with the opening of the Dies irae chant, continues with various transformations of the chant’s opening in Sweeney Todd (mainly its first seven notes), and concludes with a famous use of the work in the classical literature and a possible earlier allusion by Sondheim himself.

  Although Sondheim states he did not quote Dies irae (15.1a) literally in Sweeney Todd, the published score offers just such a quotation on its second page in the Prelude (15.1b).51 Probably the most prominent and most recurring reference to Dies irae is the paraphrase of the chant that marks the opening of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” which includes notes 2–7 of the chant (15.1c). Interestingly, the jig-like rhythm of this paraphrase is reminiscent of the melodically more literal rhythmic and major mode transformation of the chant in the “Dream of the Witches Sabbath” movement of Berlioz’s famous Symphonie fantastique of 1830 (15.1 h). The longer and more chant-like notes (the first five notes) at the portion of “The Ballad” shown in Example 15.1d described by Sondheim are offset by some pitch alterations to create another major mode variation on the tune. Anthony’s paraphrase of the tune (including some changes in the note order in the first four notes of the chant) in “No Place Like London” (15.1e) adds harmonic density by placing the Dies irae in F m
inor against E in the bass (plus two non-chord tones B and D), to create an enriched variant of the “Sweeney Todd” chord (a minor seventh with the seventh in the bass or in this case E-F-A-C).

  Example 15.1. Dies irae and Sweeney Todd

  (a) Dies irae original chant (beginning)

  (b) First reference of the Dies irae in Sweeney Todd Prelude (first seven chant notes)

  (c) Dies irae paraphrased in the opening of “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” (notes 2 through 7 of the chant)

  (d) “Sequence of the Dies Irae—up a third” described by Sondheim in “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” (first five chant notes)

  (e) Dies irae paraphrased in “No Place Like London (first four chant notes rearranged as notes 4, 2, 1, and 3 with notes 5-7 in original order and all seven notes harmonized with the “Sweeney Todd” chord)

  (f) Fleeting allusion to Dies irae in “The Worst Pies in London” (first five chant notes)

  (g) Dies irae in “My Friends” (first four chant notes first inverted and then in their original order)

  (h) Dies irae in Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (quotation and transformation, first seven chant notes)

  (i) Possible allusion to Dies irae in the “The Miller’s Son” from A Little Night Music (first five chant notes with an added note between notes 4 and 5)

  The Dies irae does not appear directly in the music of the Beggar Woman (Sweeney’s wife Lucy) but nevertheless provides its foundation. In particular, the half step descent on the first two notes of the chant appears prominently in her recurring lament (“Alms … alms … for a mis’rable woman”). In “Epiphany” the descending half step will launch a scalar series of four notes starting with the musical phrase that begins “never see Johanna” and repeated obsessively with new words for the rest of the song. It is possible Sondheim realized that the descending four-note scalar figure, a ubiquitous motive that goes back at least as far as John Dowland’s song “Flow My Tears” in the early seventeenth century, has become a traditional musical sign of lament and mourning. In any case, this is how Sondheim used this simple but powerful figure in “Epiphany” and later when Sweeney mourns his Lucy’s death in the Final Scene. Although the musical connection between the Dies irae with Mrs. Lovett is present (in the midst of “The Worst Pies in London” for the first notes of the chant), the chant reference occurs so fleetingly it is barely audible and may be more imagined than real (15.1f).

  Example 15.1g shows how the first four notes of “My Friends” inverts the opening notes of Dies irae as Sondheim noted when describing his use of the chant (in the second phrase of the song, the first four notes of the chant appear in their original order). The remaining excerpts demonstrate how Berlioz famously reused the Dies irae in his Symphonie fantastique (15.1h) and how Sondheim might have previously incorporated the chant in the music he gave Petra to sing in the defiant recurring faster section of Night Music’s “The Miller’s Son” (15.1i). If the allusion is intentional in the earlier musical, the point might be considered ironic in that this young sensual character seems so non-judgmental and full of life. On the other hand, the irony is tempered by the fact that Petra points out in her song that life is brief and moments of joy are fleeting.

  Reprise Redux

  The reprise or return of a song, usually the return of a song from the first act in the second, is a tested, ubiquitous, and perhaps even invariable feature of the Broadway musical. In a previous chapter we have observed the replacement of “Buddie Beware” in favor of a reprise of “I Get a Kick Out of You” in Anything Goes in deference to Ethel Merman’s wishes. In another chapter we noted that Kiss Me, Kate, a show written by Cole Porter during the heyday of Rodgers and Hammerstein, implausibly reprised a song “So in Love” by a character who had no discernible opportunity to have heard it. We have also seen that the change of a word “how I loved you” instead of “if I loved you” was momentous when it was reprised in Carousel. The next chapter will look at the frequent, systemic reprises of Lloyd Webber.

  In his essay, “The Musical Theater,” Sondheim voices his skepticism about the effectiveness of reprises.52 For Sondheim, the fact that most characters change throughout the play necessitates at least a change in the lyric of a reprised song. Throughout his career Sondheim has found welcome opportunities to reprise the melody of a song, but never a situation where it was possible to reprise its lyric. This is why he objected to Rodgers’s desire to reprise “Take the Moment” in Do I Hear a Waltz? simply because the composer wanted the audience to hear the tune again (as was Merman’s rationale for reprising “I Get a Kick Out of You” thirty years earlier).53

  In a double interview with Prince and Sondheim, “Author and Director,” the “author” commends the “director” who initiated the idea to reprise all the songs at the end of Night Music.54 Although in the end they were able to reprise only five songs (“Soon,” “You Must Meet My Wife,” “A Weekend in the Country,” “Every Day a Little Death,” and “Send in the Clowns,” plus significant underscoring of “Liaisons”), Sondheim found this device movielike and “very effective.” With Sweeney Todd, Sondheim credits Wheeler with the suggestion that he could base the final twenty minutes of the show on “little modules” of reprised melody. Although Sondheim may not have completed some of the unmusical portions of these twenty minutes to his full satisfaction, the conclusion of Sweeney Todd demonstrates an impressive use of earlier songs, mostly from the first act, whether as fragments or relatively extended segments, underscoring, or in combination with other modules.

  The Final Sequence (Vocal Score No. 25-No. 29B), framed by “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” includes one brief interjection of the Ballad’s refrain after Sweeney’s failed attempt to kill Johanna at the end of No. 28. According to the stage direction, following a chorus of the Ballad (No. 25), the Company “transform themselves into the inmates of Fogg’s Asylum, which is now revealed.” In the early portion of the sequence these lunatics on the loose use and repeat the frantic new “City on Fire!” music no less than four times.55 In addition to the “Ballad,” Sondheim inserts significant returns of no less than eleven songs listed below (see “Thematic Reminiscences in Sweeney Todd” in the online website for a more detailed outline of thematic returns during this exciting finale).56

  ACT I: “No Place like London” (including Beggar Woman’s music), “Poor Thing,” “My Friends,” “Ah, Miss,” “Johanna” (Judge’s version), “Kiss Me,” “Pretty Women,” “Epiphany,” “A Little Priest”

  ACT II: “By the Sea,” “Not While I’m Around”

  Each one of these reprises contains significant dramatic meaning and contributes to the propulsion of the final scene toward its tragic conclusion while at the same time sonically summing up what has come before. For those who have not already perceived the musical connections between the Beggar Woman’s music (“Alms”) and “Epiphany,” in the final moments her identity as Sweeney’s beloved Lucy is unmistakably revealed. The main musical connection is the pronounced half step shared by both musical lines, both of which are ultimately connected with the Dies irae. The connection is especially pronounced in the orchestral passage that follows the death of the Beggar Woman with the return of the opening of “Epiphany” and the return of the half steps on the word “Lucy” (Vocal Score, p. 352) when Todd realizes the enormity of his action. As Todd acquires this tragic understanding, the audience can see his potential as a tragic figure, if not necessarily a sympathetic one. The collision of themes Sondheim referred to in his initial plan then returns in full force as Mrs. Lovett sings “Poor Thing” against Todd’s latest (and last) “Epiphany.” Most strikingly, just before the reprise of “A Little Priest”—and her own death at the hands of Sweeney—Mrs. Lovett herself starts singing a fragment of “Epiphany” in counterpoint to the demon barber of Fleet Street.

  The Film

  Sondheim, discussing Sweeney Todd with Mark Horowitz in 1997, spoke of possible plans for a film of this show directed by Tim Burton, who “fell in
love with the show when he was in London in 1981 and saw it ten times.”57 Not only did the composer agree when Horowitz summarized Sondheim’s often stated position that “film musicals usually don’t work,” he commented specifically with the pessimistic prediction that a film of Sweeney wouldn’t “work for two seconds.”58

  Despite his lifelong love for film, Sondheim admires very few film musicals; of those which he does like, none are adaptations.59 Unfortunately, among the adaptations he found unsatisfying were the four films based on his own shows, West Side Story, Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and A Little Night Music. In Sondheim’s view, the action in a film must “move forward constantly,” and this does not happen in these adaptations. For Sondheim, the theatrical convention of stationary singers, such as Tony and Maria singing “Tonight,” does not translate well into film. He also expressed some skepticism about whether a Sweeney Todd film would happen before the year 2099 since Burton needed time to finish Superman Twelve. Although it took another ten years (twenty-six you start from Burton’s initial binge on the London stage version), the musical film of Sweeney Todd finally appeared shortly before Christmas 2007. It was directed by Burton and starred Johnny Depp.60