London.(In Reviews: from around the world: International - Sweeney Todd; Lucia di Lammermoor)(Opera Review)

Covent Garden has occasionally resounded to the strains of operetta--Offenbach's Grande-Duchesse had its first London run there between opera seasons in 1867; Die Fledermaus made its debut at the house in 1930; and Welsh National Opera introduced Gilbert & Sullivan with their visiting Yeomen of the Guard in 1995. But the musical was off-limits until last December 15, when Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd--whose action, of course, plays just a few hundred yards away, in Fleet Street--inaugurated Broadway on Bow Street.

The piece itself was welcomed--there's probably a common element between Sondheim's regular audiences and those for opera in London--but the production did not assuage doubts about the viability of musicals as sung by opera singers.

There were some good credentials. Paul Gemignani, doyen of Broadway music directors, who led Sweeney Todd on its initial New York run in 1979, conducted. Though it may be blasphemous to say so, one or two of the ensembles could have been nearer, and some of the fascinating detail of Jonathan Tunick's classy orchestrations deserved more highlighting.

Neil Armfield's staging, designed by Brian Thompson, looked a cheap affair for a production shared between two major houses (Covent Garden and Lyric Opera of Chicago). A lot of sheets and scaffolding do not a vision of nineteenth-century London make, and the most crucial prop of all--Sweeney's beloved barber's chair--proved functional rather than visually arresting. Maybe it was a first-night hitch that made William Dazely's Anthony run in late to alert Judge Turpin, being prepared for instant dispatch at Sweeney's hand, to the dubious company he kept, but it was symptomatic of a show that was not nearly so spruce as it should have been--or, for that matter, so crisp, menacing and funny as the original London production at Drury Lane, back in 1980, or the National Theatre revival of 1994.

Both previous runs benefited from the larger-than-life, vocally grand and ultimately terrifying Sweeney of the late Dennis Quilley, classical-actor-cum-musicals specialist, who might have been a wonderful Rigoletto had he turned to opera. Thomas Allen, singing on diminished vocal resources these days, with some of his lower register virtually inaudible, was no substitute. Histrionically, his was a lightweight, mild-mannered serial killer, not so much someone bent on exacting a terrible revenge front all mankind as a normally well-behaved gentleman slightly annoyed.

Felicity Palmer's Mrs. Lovett also paled by comparison with her West End predecessors (Sheila Hancock, Julia McKenzie), though not by so many shades. At least she sensed the Dickensian comic-grotesque possibilities of the role, if not its potential pathos. Her numbers went well, but she could go a lot further without touching parody.

Jonathan Veira, despite a foot injury, gave better and fuller-voiced value as the irredeemable Judge Turpin, but Robert Tear didn't make much of Beadle Bamford. Rebecca Evans tweeted attractively as Johanna while being careless about the beat, and William Dazeley made a presentable if anonymous Anthony. More stylish was Bonaventura Bottone's parody Italian tenor as Todd's tonsorial rival, Pirelli, though admittedly this is his natural territory. Rosalind Plowright--whose previous Royal Opera roles have included Senta, Leonora (Trovatore) and Cherubini's Medee--returned as the Beggar Woman. She was as vivid and feisty as ever, and it was good to see her back.