Soundtrack To Tim Burton's Film Of Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" Now On Vinyl

New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The soundtrack to the Tim Burton - directed film of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, first released on Nonesuch Records in 2007, receives its first-ever vinyl edition, also via Nonesuch, in a two-LP set out today and available here. The film, which won Golden Globe awards for Best Motion Picture and Best Performance by an Actor for Johnny Depp, is an adaptation by John Logan of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's 1979 Tony Award-winning musical. It stars Depp as Sweeney Todd, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, and the late Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin.
"Something close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme-I am tempted to say evil-genius," exclaimed the New York Times' A.O. Scott. "This Sweeney is a bloody wonder," raved Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, "intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score."

Longtime Sondheim collaborators orches­trator Jonathan Tunick and music supervisor Paul Gemignani also worked on the soundtrack, which was produced by Mike Higham and recorded in London.

Rounding out the cast-all of whom sing their own parts-are Timothy Spall (Beadle Bamford), Sacha Baron Cohen (Adolfo Pirelli), Jayne Wisener (Johanna), Jamie Campbell Bower (Anthony), Laura Michelle Kelly (Beggar Woman), and Edward Sanders (Tobias Ragg).

Sweeney Todd is based on the nineteenth century legend—from an adaptation by Christopher Bond—of a London barber who is driven to crime when a malevolent judge takes his wife and child from him. His plan for revenge includes a cutthroat partnership with Mrs. Lovett, an enterprising businesswoman, who is soon producing the tastiest meat pies in London.

The most recent Broadway production of Sweeney Todd was in 2005, directed by John Doyle. Nonesuch released the cast album for that Tony Award-winning revival, in which the singer/actors also performed the score on musical instruments.