Townsend sharpens its skills for ‘Sweeney Todd’

Shows about starving artists, famous divas, tragic geishas and doomed lovers are nothing new to Townsend Opera.

But an opera about a serial killer, well, that is something different. Especially one about a serial killer with the razor’s edginess of “Sweeney Todd.” The macabre musical gets the full operatic treatment from the Modesto opera company Friday and Sunday, Feb. 12 and 14, at Gallo Center for the Arts.

The Tony Award-winning Stephen Sondheim story, which has been brought to the big screen as well over the years, tells the bloody tale of a 19th-century barber who seeks his revenge after being wrongfully jailed. Townsend Opera has brought in Texas-based director and choreographer John de los Santos to helm the production. While he is a newcomer to the company, he has directed “Sweeney Todd” before in Dallas.

“I love the piece; it’s an amazing show,” he said. “It’s very difficult, but rewarding in the end.”

De los Santos has worked as a director/choreographer for productions by the Fort Worth Opera, Arizona Opera and Kentucky Opera, among others. He said the show is challenging technically, like all Sondheim shows, but also in its subject matter. The piece blends humor and heart with its chills and thrills.

“You have a subject who is a serial killer who you have to make the audience love and laugh with,” he said.

The opera, de los Santos said, has more music and demands more of its stars. Stepping in as the show’s principal leads are baritone Zeffin Quinn Hollis as the demon barber himself and mezzo-soprano Margaret Gawrysiak as his meat pie-making accomplice Mrs. Lovett. Hollis returns to the company after performing as the villainous Scarpia in last season’s “Tosca.” Gawrysiak is a Townsend newcomer who has had recent roles with the Washington, D.C.-area Wolf Trap Opera.

Playing the story’s young lovers Anthony Hope and Johanna Barker are Townsend newcomers baritone David Castillo, who recently appeared on “America’s Got Talent” with the vocal group Vox, and soprano Camille Jasensky, who has performed with Opera Colorado. Todd’s chief antagonist, the corrupt Judge Turpin, will be played by bass-baritone Phil Skinner, who also will be making his company debut. Rounding out the cast will be tenors Robert Norman, Jon Lee Keenan, Timur Bekbosunov and mezzo-soprano Molly Mahoney.

“There’s a lot more music in this that helps to define all the characters and relationships,” de los Santos said. “We need singers with opera training to do justice to the score. The music is incredibly difficult and complex. So they need real musical chops. It’s a big show; every character has a showpiece moment. We have a large chorus. It deals with heightened emotions.”

And, of course, all that blood. De los Santos promises the production will be more stylized than gory. As the Victorian-era barber uses his chair to take vengeance on his victims, the red flows freely. The Townsend production will approach the grisly affair with artistic original set pieces. The visual concept draws from the work of American artist Stephen Gammell, whose haunting black-and-white line drawings illustrated the “Scary Stories” book series, among others.

“The design is going to be in black and white, so when the blood does flow, it will be a lot more visceral and just pops out,” de los Santos said.

While “Sweeney Todd” is a scary story, the Townsend show also seeks to reveal the humanity underneath.

“This isn’t just a musical about someone who kills; it’s about someone struggling to survive under these difficult circumstances and giving back what he was dealt,” de los Santos said. “It’s about revenge and justice.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Townsend sharpens its skills for ‘Sweeney Todd’."