Photo Flash: Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson Return to SWEENEY TODD at the English National Opera Tonight

Lonny Price directs Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson in Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Musical Thriller, the first production in a major new long term partnership between English National Opera (ENO) and the GradeLinnit Company. Joining Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson who will lead the cast as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett are Matthew Seadon-Young as Anthony Hope,Katie Hall as Johanna Barker, Philip Quast as Judge Turpin, Jack North as Tobias Ragg, Alex Gaumond as Beadle Bamford, Rosalie Craig as Beggar Woman and John Owen-Jones as Pirelli.

Ensemble members are Madeleine Harland, Lydia Gerrard, Leah Penston, Frankie Jenna, Verity Quade, Susannah Van den Berg, Anna O'Byrne, Molly Lynch, Emily Bull, Gaia Wise, Alexandra Grierson, Vicki Lee Taylor, Katie Kerr, Ffion Emyr, Nancy Hill, Edd Campbell Bird, Alastair Brookshaw, Kane Oliver Parry, Scott Cripps, John Barr, Aaron Lee Lambert, Gary Tushaw, Ashley Robinson, Jeff Nicholson, Joseph Prouse, Gavin James, Marc Akinfolarin, Jacob Chapman, Ian Caddick and Adam Vaughan.

Lonny Price's production of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, A Musical Thriller, has a strictly limited run of 14 performances at ENO's London Coliseum beginning 30 March 2015. Press night is 31 March with the run concluding on 12 April 2015. The ENO orchestra, conducted by David Charles Abell, will appear on stage with the cast in this semi-staged production which was originally produced by the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts last year, with orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick.

Set in Victorian London, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street tells the story of the eponymous barber who seeks vengeance on what he sees as a merciless world by murdering his customers and, with the help of his landlady, the romantically inclined Mrs. Lovett, bakes their bodies into meat pies, which are fed to London's avid and unknowing populace. Sondheim's score pays homage to the music of Hollywood composer Bernard Herrmann. Highlights include "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," "Not While I'm Around," "A Little Priest," and "Pretty Women."

With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler from an adaptation by Christopher Bond, Sweeney Todd received its world premiere at the Uris Theatre on Broadway in March 1979, directed by Harold Prince and starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury. The show received eight Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score, as well as eleven Drama Desk Awards and the Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical.

Photo Credit: Tristram Kenton