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3.0 out of 5 stars
Scary Enough For The Wee Ones, March 20, 2008
This review is from: Sweeney Todd & Dracula! (Audio CD)
These are two charming pseudo-Victorian ballad operas for young people, although there are adult roles too. Both are for narrator, soloists, chorus and a small instrumental ensemble. The tunes are wonderful and the stories are handled in a way which gives full reign to the creepiness of the tales without resorting to gross outs. Blyton's seventeen minute "curtain raiser" take on Sweeney takes a similar plot curve to Sondheim's version, premiered two years earlier, minus the gore. (It is interesting that the historical Sweeney Todd was hanged in 1803 and committed most of his crimes in the 1790's, but the stage, film and television versions universally costume the work in various years of the Victorian Era. Blyton specifies 1840, and the recent film of the Sondheim seems to be costumed in the late 1860s or early 1870s.)
The Dracula piece, at twenty five minutes is a more substantial work, and very entertaining.Both works are much influenced by film and television.
The sound recording is very good, but one should note an extreme amount of tracking. This disc lasts forty three minutes and has eighty-one tracks !
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