STAGE TUBE: Inside Look at SWEENEY TODD with Bryn Terfel; Airs 9/26 on PBS

SWEENEY TODD airs on PBS stations on Friday, September 26, 2014, 9:00-11:30 p.m. ET. Audra McDonald serves as host. The acclaimed, sold-out production stars Terfel in the title role and Academy Award-winning actress Emma Thompson as Mrs. Lovett in her Philharmonic debut, New York stage debut, and first time performing the role. In the video, Bryn Terfel describes the joys and challenges of performing the title role.

Music Director Alan Gilbert is the conductor, Grant Sturiale is the assistant conductor, Lonny Price is the director, Lonny Price and Matt Cowart are the producers, and Josh Rhodes is the choreographer.

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 Hermann. 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 a book by Hugh Wheeler, Sweeney Todd first opened on Broadway at the Uris Theatre on March 1, 1979, directed by Harold Prince and starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury. The show received eight Tony Awards in 1979 - including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score - as well as 11 Drama Desk Awards and the Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical. It has entered the mainstream through several revivals, productions in opera houses, and the 2007 Tim Burton film adaptation starringJohnny Depp.