Evans, Friedman, Quast, Terfel, et al. Set for London Sweeney Todd

International opera star Bryn Terfel and Olivier Award winners Maria Friedman, Daniel Evans, and Philip Quast will star in the Royal Festival Hall’s concert presentation of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd, for four performances, July 5-7.

The production, to be directed by David Freeman, is part of the celebratory reopening season at the RFH, which closed for the past two years while undergoing a £111 million refurbishment. The show will also feature the London Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Stephen Barlow, along with Adrian Thompson, Steve Elias, and the Maida Vale Singers.

A thriller set in Victorian London and based on the infamous tale of the vengefully bloodthirsty barber and his pie-making proprietress, the musical premiered in New York in 1979 in a production directed by Harold Prince and starring Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd and Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett. It was recently revived on Broadway with Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone in the leading roles, under the direction of John Doyle.

Terfel, who will play the title role, is one of the world’s leading opera singers; he previously played Sweeney at the Chicago Lyric Opera in 2002. Friedman, who will play Mrs. Lovett, has won Olivier Awards for By Special Arrangement, Ragtime, and Sondheim’s Passion. In addition, she starred in London and Broadway in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White.

Evans, who will play Tobias, has won Oliviers for his work in Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along and for the title role of the 2006 revival of Sunday in the Park with George, in which he will star later this season on Broadway in the Roundabout Theatre’s production. Quast, who will play Judge Turpin, won the Olivier for the 1990 UK premiere of Sunday in the Park with George and recently starred in Evita.

For more information, visit www.whatsonstage.com.