Len Cariou (Sweeney Todd..)- Page 2

[LostLeander]

Posted: 12/10/05 at 12:28pm

George sounds absolutely gorgeous in this role. And so does Len. However, Sondheim has always preferred the actor in the role of Sweeney, and that's not to say that George is not a great actor, because he is. He just approaches something as a vocalist, rather than from a completely acting perspective, where the singing is secondary, which is fine, because he was going to be an opera singer who go involed in musical theatre.

Len approached it completely as an actor's role, and probably didn't have the sound technique that Hearn did and does have. But he sing the **** out of the score, and you can hear the raw emotion in his voice, and it is absolutely glorious. His "Epiphany" is the difinitve version of the song. There is just so much going on.

I consider Len a Maria Callas type: beautiful voice, and sacrificing his voice by singing perhaps a bit incorrectly to really BE Sweeney.

I always felt like George's choices were based on what would be best for his voice, and while he does have absolutely gorgeous and heartbreaking moments as Sweeney, there were based on vocal manipulations. Len WAS Sweeney.


George is a vocal technician and wouldn't do that to his voice. SO, I love George's Sweeney (and the rest of his roles) but I love Len because he went the extra step, and it probably did cost him his voice, over time.

But what a role to create and be remember/immortalized for, eh?

I'd say it's worth it.

[professor]

Posted: 12/10/05 at 1:16pm

Thanks for bringing up Bob Gunton, PAB. That production (Circle in the Sqaure, 1989) was my introduction to Sweeney Todd and it remains indelibly etched in my memory. Of course, I've subsequently come to admire both Cariou's (on CD) and Hearn's (on video) takes on the role. The thing that got me about the Circle in the Sqaure production (and Gunton's performance) was the intimacy and the eerie quiet(perhaps that also had something to do with the music being played on synthesizers). Anyway..... just strolling down memory lane.

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 12/10/05 at 1:25pm

back in the '90's when i was studying with the very great teacher, mark planner, len would often have the lesson in front of me. i would come sit in the foyer of the studio and hear this great ringing sound shaking the hallway. SWEENEY is my all time favorite show and while i love g. hearn in every way -- no one sings the love song to those knives like len. listening to his lesson (i think he was working on an ALW MUSIC OF THE NIGHT show) i was completely thrilled. he would come out of the teeny studio just disgusted with himself and he wouldn't take a compliment or even my little fangrrl whimpering "wow!" i don't think he can make the sounds he wants to anymore and that that is especially difficult for him to deal with (i guess it's that way for lots of artists...julie andrews, etc) he hasn't been singing in public for a few years now.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 12/10/05 at 3:11pm

I have to disagree with Ruprecht Jr.s take on the role.

Sondheim's lyrics for the various reprises of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" describe Sweeney as "smooth," "subtle," "sly," "a perfect machine," someone who "ponders and plans," "barbing the hook, baiting the trap" etc. He's a methodical guy that has been brooding on revenge for 15 years, and he goes about it knowing exactly how he wants to carry it off. That, to me, is Len's Sweeney, who only really lost control of his senses during "Epiphany" and the Final Sequence. Hearn already seems unhinged as early as "No Place Like London"/"The Barber and His Wife". It's valid to play Sweeney as totally crazy from the start, and Hearn is striking throughout, but as others have pointed out, Cariou just got under your skin a little more with his haunted, sorrowful and terrifying Sweeney. And I also think Cariou played it the way Sondheim describes the character.