Sweeney Todd, The Dies Irae, And You

Everything you ever (and never) wanted to know about the intervals of Sweeney Todd.

By Logan Modan

You may have noticed a certain song from Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is currently trending on TikTok. The trend includes kissing your partner, pet, or, in my case, my stuffed bear from IKEA named Jürgen, to the beat of the song. Sweeney Todd has had many, many revivals and remakes in its lifetime, including the 2007 Tim Burton adaptation of the musical. The movie features Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd and Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett and this is the version that’s blown up on TikTok. The specific song is called By The Sea. and it's sung by Mrs. Lovett in the second act, where she describes her ideal life to Mr. Todd. I do like this version! I think for a movie musical it’s done very well, but there are a few things that I’m not a huge fan of. Well, one thing in particular. 

Mrs. Lovett is written for a mezzo-soprano, with a range of G3-E5, and from what I can find on the internet, Bonham Carter has a range of F#3-D5. So she basically fits the necessary range. But I found that a lot of her harmonies with Todd were cut out, instead there were many instances where she was singing in unison with him, in the same octave even. Normally this wouldn’t be a huge problem, but Sweeney Todd is a Sondheim musical, which means that (like most musicals honestly) each note is written very deliberately and with huge amounts of backstory to them. I think it would be appropriate to give some context of the show here.

Sweeney Todd is set in early 20th-century London, and it centers around two main characters, Sweeney Todd, and Mrs. Lovett. Sweeney Todd is a barber who has recently come back from an unknown island after being banished from London by Judge Turpin under false pretenses. (The Judge wanted Todd’s wife for himself.) After many years, Todd comes back to London, and meets Anthony, a sailor, who may have saved him from a sinking ship, though this is unclear. Todd also meets Lovett, an unsuccessful baker who quickly takes to Todd. The musical surges forward with it being revealed that the Judge has held Todd’s daughter captive for eighteen years and plans to marry her, but Anthony has fallen for the daughter (Johanna) and wants to save her from this marriage. Todd learns that his wife is dead—though this comes back around later in the show—and vows to get revenge on the Judge. After a full act, Todd commits his first murder, he kills a barber who was threatening to expose his past, and tell Judge Turpin who he really is. After this murder, Todd and Lovett sing a number about how Todd should just kill people, and Lovett can use their bodies to turn their meat into meat pies for her to sell! The story basically surrounds Mrs. Lovett and Todd’s seemingly bond to death. 

All this to say, Sweeney Todd the musical is heavily centered around the theme of death, and what better to showcase that than the themes of the Dies Irae, an ancient cantation about the Last Judgment. The Dies Irae uses many small intervals like lots of seconds and thirds, and Sondheim samples a lot of this. The main theme in Sweeney Todd is literally just the main theme of the Dies Irae, though this is beside the point. Because Todd and Mrs. Lovett are both so encapsulated by death, they both sing in very small intervals when they sing with each other. But the thing is, in the movie, because of the fact that Helena Bonham Carter does not have as large of a range as Mrs. Lovett should have, she cannot hit all the notes. This means she cannot create the same harmonies and dissonances with Depp that seconds and thirds automatically create because of their placement in the scale, as she’s singing mostly in unison. This removes so much of the tension and the uncertainty of the musical, just by something simple like removing the harmony. 

All in all, this is fully just a rant about the Sweeney Todd movie and its casting choices. And also the genius that is Steven Sondheim.