text: When Sondheim first brought the idea for the show to director Harold Prince, his frequent collaborator, Prince was uninterested, feeling it was a simple melodrama that wasn't very experimental structurally. However, Prince soon discovered a metaphor in which to set the show, making what Sondheim had originally envisioned as "a small horror piece" into a colossal portrait of the Industrial Revolution, and an examination of the general human condition of the time as it related to men like Sweeney Todd. Said Sondheim, "Hal's metaphor is that the factory turns out Sweeney Todds. It turns out soulless, defeated, hopeless people. That's what the play's about to him; Sweeney Todd is a product of that age. I think it's not. Sweeney Todd is a man bent on personal revenge, the way we all are in one way or another, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the time he lived in, as far as I'm concerned.” However, Sondheim accepted Prince's vision as a different way to do the show, and as an opportunity to do the show on a large scale, knowing that small-scale productions could be done at any time.


title: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

text: On the stage of the Uris Theater in New York, this tale of horrors was transformed into a mountain of steel in motion. Prince's scenic metaphor for "Sweeney Todd" was a 19th-century iron foundry moved from Rhode Island and reassembled on the stage, which critic Jack Kroll aptly described as "part cathedral, part factory, part prison, that dwarfed and degraded the swarming denizens of the lower orders."


text: When it came to casting, Sondheim thought stage veteran Angela Lansbury would add some needed comedy to the grim tale as the lunatic Cockney shopkeeper, but Lansbury needed to be convinced. She was a star and, as she pointed out to Sondheim, "Your show is not called 'Nellie Lovett', it's called 'Sweeney Todd'. And I'm the second banana." To convince her, Sondheim "auditioned," writing a couple of songs for her, including the macabre patter song, "A Little Priest." And he gave her the key to the character, saying "I want Mrs. Lovett to have a music hall character." Lansbury, who had grown up in British music hall, immediately got it. "Not just music hall ... but dotty music hall", as she put it. After she was formally confirmed in the role, she relished the opportunity, saying that she loved "the extraordinary wit and intelligence of [Sondheim's] lyrics."


text: Canadian actor and singer Len Cariou was Sondheim's personal choice to play the tortured barber. In preparation for the role, Cariou (who was studying with a voice teacher at the time) asked Sondheim what kind of range he needed to have in the role. Cariou told him he was prepared to give Sondheim a couple of octaves to deal with, and Sondheim immediately replied, "That would be more than sufficient."


text: With Prince absorbed in staging the mammoth production, Lansbury and Cariou were left largely to their own when it came to developing their characters. They worked together on all their scenes, both of them creative actors who were experienced in giving intense performances. "That cuckoo style of playing Mrs. Lovett, that was pretty much Angela ... She invented that character", Cariou said. She recalled, "I just ran with it. The wide-openness of my portrayal had to do with my sink or swim attitude toward it. I just figured hell, I've done everything else on Broadway, I might as well go with Mrs. Lovett."


text: It is said that on opening night Harold Clurman, the doyen of American theatre critics, rushed up to Schuyler Chapin, former general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, demanding to know why he had not put it on at the Met. To which Chapin replied: "I would have put it on like a shot if I'd had the opportunity. There would have been screams and yells but I wouldn't have given a damn. Because it is an opera. A modern American opera."


text: The citizens of London, who act as a Greek chorus throughout the play, drop a body bag and pour ashes into a shallow grave. Sweeney Todd rises forth ("The Ballad of Sweeney Todd"), and introduces the drama.


text: In 1846, young sailor Anthony Hope and the mysterious Sweeney Todd, whom Anthony has recently rescued at sea and befriended, dock in London. A beggar woman sexually solicits them, appearing to recognize Todd for a moment ("No Place Like London"), and Todd shoos her away. Todd obliquely relates some of his troubled past to Anthony: he was a naïve barber, "removed...from his plate" by a corrupt judge who lusted after Todd's wife ("The Barber and His Wife"). Leaving Anthony, Todd enters a meat pie shop on Fleet Street, where the owner, the slatternly widow Mrs. Lovett, laments the scarcity of meat and customers ("Worst Pies in London"). When Todd asks after the empty upstairs apartment, she reveals that its former tenant, Benjamin Barker, was transported for life based on false charges by Judge Turpin, who, along with his servant, Beadle Bamford, then lured Barker's wife Lucy to a masked ball at the Judge's home and raped her ("Poor Thing").


text: Todd's reaction reveals that he is himself Benjamin Barker. Promising to keep his secret, Mrs. Lovett explains that Lucy poisoned herself with arsenic and that their then-infant daughter, Johanna, became the Judge's ward. Todd swears revenge on the Judge and the Beadle, and Mrs. Lovett presents Todd with his old collection of sterling silver straight razors, which persuades Todd to take up his old profession ("My Friends" and "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" – reprise). Elsewhere, Anthony spies a beautiful girl singing at her window ("Green Finch and Linnet Bird"), and the beggar woman tells him that her name is Johanna. Unaware that Johanna is his friend Todd's daughter, Anthony is immediately enamored ("Ah, Miss"), and he pledges to return for her, even after the judge and the Beadle threaten him and chase him away ("Johanna").


text: In the crowded London marketplace, flamboyant Italian barber Adolfo Pirelli and his simple-minded young assistant Tobias Ragg pitch a dramatic cure-all for hair loss ("Pirelli's Miracle Elixir"). Todd and Lovett soon arrive; as part of his plan to establish his new identity, Todd exposes the elixir as a sham, challenges Pirelli to a shaving competition and easily wins ("The Contest"), inviting the impressed Beadle for a free shave ("The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" – reprise 2). Several days later, Judge Turpin flagellates himself in a frenzy over a growing lust for Johanna, but instead resolves to marry her himself ("Johanna – Mea Culpa").


text: Todd awaits the Beadle's arrival with mounting impatience, but Mrs. Lovett tries to soothe him ("Wait"). When Anthony tells Todd of his plan to ask Johanna to elope with him, Todd, eager to reunite with his daughter, agrees to let them use his barbershop as a safehouse. As Anthony leaves, Pirelli and Tobias enter, and Mrs. Lovett takes Toby downstairs for a pie. Alone with Todd, Pirelli drops his Italian accent and reveals that he is really Daniel O'Higgins, Benjamin Barker's former assistant. He knows Todd's true identity (having recognized Barker's illustrious shaving tools during their earlier competition) and demands half his income for life. (In the film, the name is not Daniel O'Higgins but "Davy Collins".) Todd kills O'Higgins by slitting his throat ("Pirelli's Death" and "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" – reprise 3) and temporarily hides his body. Meanwhile, Johanna and Anthony plan their elopement ("Kiss Me"), while the Beadle recommends Todd's grooming services to the Judge so that the judge may better win Johanna's affections ("Ladies in Their Sensitivities").


text: Panicked at first on learning of Pirelli's murder, Mrs. Lovett swipes his leftover coin purse and then asks Todd how he plans to dispose of the body. Suddenly, the judge enters; Todd quickly seats him and lulls him with a relaxing conversation ("Pretty Women"). Before Todd can kill the judge, however, Anthony re-enters and blurts out his elopement plan. The angry judge storms out, vowing never to return and to send Johanna away. Todd drives Anthony out in a fit of fury and, reminded of the evil he sees in London, resolves to depopulate the city by murdering his future customers since all people deserve to die: the rich to be punished for their corruption, and the poor to be relieved of their misery ("Epiphany"). While discussing how to dispose of Pirelli's body, Mrs. Lovett is struck by a sudden idea and suggests that they use the bodies of Todd's victims in her meat pies, and Todd happily agrees ("A Little Priest").


text: Several weeks later, Mrs. Lovett's pie shop has become a successful business, and Toby works there as a waiter. The food is very popular ("God, That's Good!"). Todd has acquired a special mechanical barber's chair that allows him to kill clients and then send their bodies directly through a chute into the pie shop's basement bakehouse. Casually slitting his customers' necks, Todd despairs of ever seeing Johanna, while Anthony searches London for her ("Johanna – Quartet"). Anthony finds Johanna locked away in a private lunatic asylum, but barely escapes being placed under arrest by the Beadle. After a day of hard work, while Todd remains fixated on his revenge, Mrs. Lovett envisions a seaside retirement ("By the Sea"). Anthony arrives to beg Todd for help to free Johanna, and Todd, revitalized, instructs Anthony to rescue her by posing as a wigmaker intent on purchasing inmates' hair ("Wigmaker Sequence" and "The Ballad..." – reprise 4). However, once Anthony has departed, Todd sends a letter informing the Judge that Anthony will bring Johanna to his shop just after dark, and that he will hand her over ("The Letter") in order to lure him back to the shop.


text: In the pie shop, Toby tells Mrs. Lovett of his skepticism about Todd and his own desire to protect her ("Not While I'm Around"). When he recognizes Pirelli's coin purse in Mrs. Lovett's hands, she distracts him by showing him the bakehouse, instructing him how to work the meat grinder and the oven before locking him in. Upstairs, she encounters the Beadle at her harmonium; he has been asked by Lovett's neighbors to investigate the strange smoke and stench from the pie shop's chimney. Mrs. Lovett stalls the Beadle with "Parlor Songs" until Todd returns to offer the Beadle his promised "free shave"; Mrs. Lovett loudly plays her harmonium to cover the Beadle's screams above as Todd dispatches him. In the basement, Toby discovers hair and fingernails in a pie he has been eating, just as the Beadle's fresh corpse comes tumbling through the chute. Terrified, he flees into the sewers below the bakehouse. Mrs. Lovett then informs Todd that Toby has found out about their secret and they plot to kill him.


text: Anthony arrives at the asylum to rescue Johanna, but is exposed when Johanna recognizes him. Anthony draws a pistol given to him by Todd, but cannot bring himself to shoot Jonas Fogg, the corrupt asylum owner; Johanna grabs the pistol and kills Fogg. As Anthony and Johanna flee, the asylum's freed inmates prophesy the end of the world, while Todd and Mrs. Lovett hunt through the sewers for Toby, and the beggar woman fears what has become of the Beadle ("City on Fire/Searching").


text: Anthony and Johanna (now disguised as a sailor) arrive at Todd's empty shop. Anthony leaves to seek a coach after he and Johanna reaffirm their love ("Ah Miss" – reprise). Johanna hears the beggar woman entering and hides in a trunk in the barbershop. The beggar woman seems to recognize the room. Todd enters and tries to force her to leave as she again seems to recognize him ("Beggar Woman's Lullaby"). Hearing the Judge outside, a frantic Todd kills the beggar woman, sending her body down the chute barely a moment before the Judge bursts in. Todd assures the Judge that Johanna is repentant, and the judge asks for a quick splash of cologne.


text: Once he has the Judge in his chair, Todd soothes him with another conversation on women, but this time he alludes to their "fellow tastes, in women at least". The Judge recognizes him as "Benjamin Barker!" just before Todd slashes his throat and sends him hurtling down the chute ("The Judge's Return"). Remembering Toby, Todd starts to leave, but, realizing he has left his razor behind, returns just as the disguised Johanna rises, horrified, from the trunk. Not recognizing her, Todd attempts to kill her, just as Mrs. Lovett shrieks from the bakehouse below, providing a distraction for Johanna to escape. Downstairs, Mrs. Lovett is struggling with the dying Judge, who claws at her. She then attempts to drag the beggar woman's body into the oven, but Todd arrives and, through a shaft of light, sees the lifeless face clearly for the first time: the beggar woman was his wife Lucy. Horrified, Todd accuses Mrs. Lovett of lying to him. Mrs. Lovett frantically denies it, explaining that Lucy did indeed poison herself, but lived, although the attempt left her insane. Mrs. Lovett then tells Todd she loves him and would be a better wife than Lucy ever could have been. Todd feigns forgiveness, dancing manically with Mrs. Lovett until he hurls her into the oven, burning her alive. Full of despair and in shock, Todd embraces the dead Lucy. Toby, now quite insane and his hair turned white, crawls up from the sewer babbling nursery rhymes to himself. He picks up Todd's fallen razor and slits Todd's throat. As Todd falls dead and Toby drops the razor, Anthony, Johanna and some others break into the bakehouse. Toby, heedless of them, begins turning the meat grinder, crooning Mrs. Lovett's previous instructions to him ("Final Scene").


text: The ensemble cast, soon joined by the risen Todd and Mrs. Lovett, sing a final reprise of "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" warning against revenge (though admitting that "everyone does it"). Tearing off their costumes, the company exits. Todd sneers at the audience for a moment and vanishes.


text: The original production premiered on Broadway at the Uris Theatre on March 1, 1979 and closed on June 29, 1980 after 557 performances and 19 previews. Directed by Hal Prince and choreographed by Larry Fuller, the scenic design was by Eugene Lee, costumes by Franne Lee and lighting by Ken Billington. The cast included Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett, Len Cariou as Todd, Victor Garber as Anthony, Sarah Rice as Johanna, Merle Louise as the Beggar Woman, Ken Jennings as Tobias, Edmund Lyndeck as Judge Turpin, Joaquin Romaguera as Pirelli, and Jack Eric Williams as Beadle Bamford. The production was nominated for nine Tony Awards, winning eight including Best Musical. Dorothy Loudon and George Hearn replaced Lansbury and Cariou on March 4, 1980.


text: The first national U.S. tour started on October 24, 1980, in Washington, D.C. and ended in August 1981 in Los Angeles, California. Lansbury was joined by Hearn and this version was taped during the Los Angeles engagement and broadcast on The Entertainment Channel (one of the predecessors of today's A&E) on September 12, 1982. This performance would later be repeated on Showtime and PBS (the latter as part of its "Great Performances" series); It was later released on home video through Turner Home Entertainment, and on DVD from Warner Home Video. The taped production was nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards in 1985, winning three including Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program (for George Hearn).


text: A North American tour started on February 23, 1982, in Wilmington, Delaware, and ended on July 17, 1982, in Toronto, Ontario. June Havoc and Ross Petty starred.


text: The first London production opened on July 2, 1980, at the West End's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, starring Denis Quilley and Sheila Hancock along with Andrew C. Wadsworth as Anthony, Mandy More as Johanna, Michael Staniforth as Tobias, Austin Kent as Judge Turpin, Dilys Watling as the Beggar Woman, David Wheldon-Williams as Beadle Bamford, Oz Clarke as Jonas Fogg, and John Aron as Pirelli. The show ran for 157 performances. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the production won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1980. The production closed on November 14, 1980.


text: The first Broadway revival opened on September 14, 1989 at the Circle in the Square Theatre, and closed on February 25, 1990 after 189 performances and 46 previews. It was produced by Theodore Mann, directed by Susan H. Schulman, with choreography by Michael Lichtefeld. The cast featured Bob Gunton (Sweeney Todd), Beth Fowler (Mrs. Lovett), Eddie Korbich (Tobias Ragg), Jim Walton (Anthony Hope) and David Barron (Judge Turpin). In contrast to the original Broadway version, the production was designed on a relatively intimate scale and was affectionately referred to as "Teeny Todd." It was originally produced Off-Broadway by the York Theatre Company at the Church of the Heavenly Rest from March 31, 1989 to April 29, 1989. This production received four Tony Award nominations: for Best Revival of a Musical, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Actress in a Musical and Best Direction of a Musical, but failed to win any.


text: In 1993, the show received its first London revival at the Royal National Theatre. The production opened originally at the Cottesloe Theatre on June 2, 1993, and later transferred to the Lyttleton Theatre on December 16, 1993, playing in repertory and closing on June 1, 1994. The show's design was slightly altered to fit a proscenium arch theatre space for the Lyttleton Theatre. The director was Declan Donnellan and the Cottesloe Theatre production starred Alun Armstrong as Todd and Julia McKenzie as Mrs. Lovett, with Adrian Lester as Anthony, Barry James as Beadle Bamford and Denis Quilley (who had originated the title role in the original London production in 1980) as Judge Turpin. When the show transferred to the Lyttleton, Quilley replaced Armstrong in the title role. Sondheim praised Donnellan for the "small 'chamber' approach to the show, which was the composer's original vision for the piece." This production received Olivier Awards for Best Musical Revival, Best Actor in a Musical (Armstrong) and Best Actress in a Musical (McKenzie), and Best Director Of A Musical for Donnellan. Adrian Lester and Barry James received nominations in the category of Best Supporting Performance In a Musical for their portrayals of Anthony and Beadle Bamford respectively.


text: In 2004, John Doyle directed a revival of the musical at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, England, running from July 27, 2004 until October 9, 2004. This production subsequently transferred to the West End's Trafalgar Studios and then the Ambassadors Theatre. This production was notable for having no orchestra, with the 10-person cast playing the score themselves on musical instruments that they carried onstage. This marked the first time in nearly ten years that a Sondheim show had been presented in the commercial West End. It starred Paul Hegarty as Todd, Karen Mann as Mrs. Lovett, Rebecca Jackson as The Beggar Woman, Sam Kenyon as Tobias, Rebecca Jenkins as Johanna, David Ricardo-Pearce as Anthony and Colin Wakefield as Judge Turpin. This production closed February 5, 2005.


text: In spring 2006, the production toured the UK with Jason Donovan as Todd and Harriet Thorpe as Mrs. Lovett.


text: A version of the John Doyle West End production transferred to Broadway, opening on November 3, 2005 at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre with a new cast, all of whom played their own instruments, as had been done in London. The cast consisted of: Patti LuPone (Mrs. Lovett/Tuba/Percussion), Michael Cerveris (Todd/Guitar), Manoel Felciano (Tobias/Violin/Clarinet/Piano), Alexander Gemignani (Beadle/Piano/Trumpet), Lauren Molina (Johanna/Cello), Benjamin Magnuson (Anthony/Cello/Piano), Mark Jacoby (Turpin/Trumpet/Percussion), Donna Lynne Champlin (Pirelli/Accordion/Flute/Piano), Diana DiMarzio (Beggar Woman/Clarinet) and John Arbo (Fogg/Double bass). The production ran for 349 performances and 35 previews, and was nominated for six Tony Awards, winning two: Best Direction of a Musical for Doyle and Best Orchestrations for Sarah Travis who had reconstructed Jonathan Tunick's original arrangements to suit the ten-person cast and orchestra. Because of the small scale of the musical, it cost $3.5 million to make, a sum small in comparison to many Broadway musicals and recouped in nineteen weeks. A national tour based on Doyle's Broadway production began on August 30, 2007 with Judy Kaye (who had temporarily replaced LuPone in the Broadway run) as Mrs. Lovett and David Hess as Todd. Alexander Gemignani also played the title role for the Toronto run of the tour in November 2007.


text: Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton starred in a new production of the show that played at The Chichester Festival Theatre, running from September 24 to November 5, 2011. Directed by Jonathan Kent, the cast included Ball as Todd, Staunton as Mrs. Lovett, James McConville as Tobias, John Bowe as Judge Turpin, Robert Burt as Pirelli, Luke Brady as Anthony, Gillian Kirkpatrick as Lucy Barker, Lucy May Barker as Johanna and Peter Polycarpou as Beadle Bamford. It was notably set in the 1930s instead of 1846 and restored the oft-cut song "Johanna (Mea Culpa)". The production received positive reviews from both critics and audience members and transferred to the Adelphi Theatre in the West End in 2012 for a limited run from March 10 to September 22, 2012. Comedian Jason Manford made his musical debut as Pirelli from July 2 to 28 and August 15, 18 and 24, 2012 while Robert Burt appeared at Glyndebourne Festival Opera.The West End transfer received six Laurence Olivier Award nominations of which it won the three: Best Musical Revival, Best Actor in a Musical for Ball and Best Actress in a Musical for Staunton.


text: Cameron Mackintosh produced the West End transfer of the Tooting Arts Club production of the show which ran at Harrington's Pie Shop in Tooting, London in October and November 2014. This production takes place in a pie shop that has been recreated for the occasion in Shaftesbury Avenue and ran from March 19 to May 16, 2015. The cast included Jeremy Secomb as Sweeney Todd, Siobhán McCarthy as Mrs. Lovett, Nadim Naaman as Anthony, Ian Mowat as the Beadle, Duncan Smith as the Judge, Kiara Jay as Pirelli and the Beggar Woman, Joseph Taylor as Tobias and Zoe Doano as Johanna.


text: The Tooting Arts Club production transferred to Off-Broadway, transforming the Barrow Street Theatre into a working re-creation of Harrington's pie shop. Previews began February 14, 2017 before officially opening night on March 1. Like the London production, the transfer was directed by Bill Buckhurst, designed by Simon Kenny and produced by Rachel Edwards, Jenny Gersten, Seaview Productions, and Nate Koch, executive producer, in association with Barrow Street Theatre. The opening night cast featured four members of the London cast: Jeremy Secomb as Sweeney Todd, Siobhan McCarthy as Mrs. Lovett, Duncan Smith as the Judge and, Joseph Taylor as Tobias, alongside Brad Oscar as the Beadle, Betsy Morgan as Pirelli and the Beggar Woman, Matt Doyle as Anthony and Alex Finke as Johanna. In April 2017, five of the cast members left the show, replaced by Norm Lewis as Sweeney Todd, Carolee Carmello as Mrs. Lovett, John-Michael Lyles as Tobias, Stacie Bono as The Beggar Woman and Pirelli, and Jamie Jackson as Judge Turpin. After Norm Lewis left, he was replaced by Hugh Panaro in the titular role. In February 2018, Panaro and Carmello were replaced by Thom Sema and Sally Ann Triplett, respectively. Other changes included Michael James Leslie as Judge Turpin and Zachary Noah Piser as Tobias. The production was extended and closed on August 26, 2018.


text: The musical will begin previews on February 26 and opening night set for March 26, 2023 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, starring Josh Groban as Todd, Annaleigh Ashford as Mrs. Lovett, Jordan Fisher as Anthony, Gaten Matarazzo as Tobias, Jamie Jackson reprising his role as Judge Turpin, and Ruthie Ann Miles as the Beggarwoman. The production is set to be directed by Thomas Kail, with orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, musical supervision by Alex Lacamoire and choreography by Steven Hoggett.


text: The production began a workshop three days after Sondheim's death who had been planning to attend the workshop's final day. It was revealed that the production will have a budget of $14 million dollars with a cast of 26 and an orchestra of 27 and that the production would remain set in the 19th century.


text: The State Opera of South Australia presented Australia's first professional production in Adelaide in September 1987. Directed by Gale Edwards, it featured Lyndon Terracini as Todd, Nancye Hayes as Mrs. Lovett and Peter Cousens as Anthony. The following month, Melbourne Theatre Company's version opened at the Playhouse in Melbourne, directed by Roger Hodgman with Peter Carroll as Sweeney Todd, Geraldine Turner as Mrs. Lovett and Jon Ewing as Judge Turpin. The Melbourne production toured to Sydney and Brisbane in 1988.


text: The musical was premiered on June 5, 1992 at the Erkel Theater in Budapest, Hungary. The play was translated into Hungarian by Tibor Miklós and György Dénes. The cast consisted of Lajos Miller as Sweeney Todd, Zsuzsa Lehoczky as Mrs. Lovett, Sándor Sasvári as Anthony, Mónika Vásári as Johanna, Róbert Rátonyi as Judge Turpin, Tibor Oláh as Tobias, Péter Kocsmáros as Pirelli, Ildikó Kishonti as Lucy/Beggar woman, and István Rozsos as Beadle Bamford.


text: In 1994, East West Players in Los Angeles staged a revival of the show directed by Tim Dang, featuring a largely Asian Pacific American cast. It was also the first time the show had been presented in an intimate house (Equity 99-seat). The production received 5 Ovation Awards including the Franklin Levy Award for Best Musical (Smaller Theatre) and Best Director (Musical) for Dang.


text: On April 5, 1995 it premiered in Catalan at the theater Poliorama of Barcelona (later moving to the Apollo), in a production of the Drama Centre of the Government of Catalonia. The libretto was adapted by Roser Batalla Roger Pena, and was directed by Mario Gas. The cast consisted of Constantino Romero as Sweeney Todd, Vicky Peña as Mrs. Lovett, Maria Josep Peris as Johanna, Muntsa Rius as Tobias, Pep Molina as Anthony, Xavier Ribera-Vall as Judge Turpin & Teresa Vallicrosa as The Beggar Woman. With critical acclaim and audience applause (Sondheim traveled to Barcelona after hearing the success it was having and was delighted with the production), it later moved to Madrid. The show received over fifteen awards.


text: Directed by Staffan Aspegren and starting Sauli Tiilikainen (Sweeney Todd) and Ritva Auvinen (Mrs. Lovett). Translated by Juice Leskinen


text: As part of the Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration, "Sweeney Todd" ran from May 10, 2002 through June 30, 2002 at the Eisenhower Theatre, starring Brian Stokes Mitchell as Sweeney Todd, Christine Baranski as Mrs. Lovett, Hugh Panaro as Anthony, Walter Charles (a member of the original cast), as Judge Turpin, Celia Keenan-Bolger as Johanna, Mary Beth Peil as The Beggar Woman, Mark Price as Tobias Ragg, Ray Friedeck as Beadle Bamford and Kevin Ligon as Pirelli. It was directed by Christopher Ashley with choreography by Daniel Pelzig.


text: Irish tenor David Shannon starred as Todd in a highly successful Dublin production of the show at the Gate Theatre, which ran from April 2007 through June 2007. The production employed a minimalistic approach: the cast consisted of a small ensemble of 14 performers, and the orchestra was a seven-piece band. The look of the production was quite abstract. "The Sunday Times" wrote that "The black backdrop of David Farley's rough hewn set and the stark minimalism of Rick Fisher's lighting suggest a self-conscious edginess, with Shannon's stylised make-up, long leather coat and brooding countenance only adding to the feeling." When a character died, flour was poured over them.


text: The 2008 Gothenburg production premiered on May 15, 2008 at The Göteborg Opera. The show was a collaboration with West End International Ltd. The cast featured Michael McCarthy as Sweeney Todd and Rosemary Ashe as Mrs Lovett and David Shannon this time as Anthony. The show did a four-week run and ended on June 8, 2008.


text: In 2009, Sweeney Todd embarked upon an equity tour of the U.K. and Ireland. The production was eager to disassociate itself with recent West End backlash regarding Stunt Casting and so the tour was cast through an open call audition process. Whilst it remained unclear if the casting of predominantly unknown actors helped the tour, the production was applauded for its use of emerging performers and played to almost exclusively sold-out venues.


text: The tour ran for 8 months, starring Barry Howell as Sweeney Todd & Isabell Wyer as Ms. Lovett. The cast was completed by Alex Priat as Anthony, John Atkins as Judge Turpin, Carol Gizzard as Johanna, Sharian Wood as The Beggar Woman, Jack Leager as Beadle Bamford, Enrielos Hetares as Pirelli and Michael Greene & James Feldere who shared the role of Tobias.


text: In 2010, fifty members of the National Youth Music Theatre staged a production at the Village Underground as part of Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday celebrations in London. NYMT took the show, directed by Martin Constantine, out of a conventional theatre space and staged it within a converted Victorian warehouse in the city's East End. The company revived the show in 2011 for the International Youth Arts Festival at the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames.


text: A major new production opened in April 2011 at the Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris), which first gave Sondheim a place on the French stage with their production of "A Little Night Music". The director was Lee Blakeley with choreography by Lorena Randi and designs by Tanya McAllin. The cast featured Rod Gilfry and Franco Pomponi (Sweeney Todd) and Caroline O'Connor (Mrs Lovett).


text: The Lyric Stage Company of Boston produced a run in September and October 2014 with the company's Artistic Director Spiro Veloudos staging and directing the show. The cast included Christopher Chew as Sweeney Todd and Amelia Broome as Mrs. Lovett.


text: Quebec City-based Théâtre Décibel produced the French-speaking world-premiere of the show. Translated by Joëlle Bond and directed by Louis Morin, the show played from October 28 to November 8, 2014 at the Capitole de Québec. The cast includes Renaud Paradis as Sweeney Todd, Katee Julien as Mrs. Lovett, Jean Petitclerc as Judge Turpin, Sabrina Ferland as the Beggar Woman, Pierre-Olivier Grondin as Anthony Hope, Andréane Bouladier as Johanna, David Noël as Tobias, Jonathan Gagnon as Beadle and Mathieu Samson as Pirelli.


text: Sondheim grants DC's Landless Theatre Company permission to orchestrate a "prog metal version" of "Sweeney Todd", the first rock orchestration of the score. The production plays at DC's Warehouse Theatre in August 2014. Directed by Melissa Baughman. Music Direction by Charles W. Johnson. Prog Metal Orchestration by The Fleet Street Collective (Andrew Lloyd Baughman, Spencer Blevins, Charles Johnson, Lance LaRue, Ray Shaw, Alex Vallejo, Andrew Siddle). The cast features metal band front singers Nina Osegueda (A Sound of Thunder) as Mrs. Lovett, Andrew Lloyd Baughman (Diamond Dead) as Sweeney Todd, Rob Bradley (Aries and Thrillkiller) as Pirelli, and Irene Jericho (Cassandra Syndrome) as Beggar Woman. The show receives three 2015 Helen Hayes Awards nominations for Best Musical, Outstanding Director of a Musical (Melissa Baughman), and Outstanding Music Director (Charles W. Johnson).


text: In autumn 2015 the Welsh National Opera and Wales Millennium Centre produced a co-production with West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Royal Exchange Manchester as part of the WNO's "Madness" season. Directed by James Brining and designed by Colin Richmond, the production was set in the 1970/80s, and was performed in Cardiff before touring to Southampton, Bristol, Llandudno, Oxford, Liverpool, Birmingham before returning to Cardiff. It was based on Brining's previous smaller productions from Dundee Rep in 2010, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Royal Exchange Manchester in 2013. The cast included David Arnsperger as Sweeney Todd and Janis Kelly as Mrs. Lovett.


text: Pieter Toerien and KickstArt produced a production at the Pieter Toerien Monte Casino Theatre in Johannesburg, which ran from October 10 – December 13, 2015 before transferring to the Theatre on the Bay in Cape Town from February 19 – April 9, 2016. Directed by Steven Stead and designed by Greg King, the production starred Jonathan Roxmouth (Sweeney Todd), Charon Williams-Ros (Mrs Lovett), Michael Richard (Judge Turpin), Jaco van Rensburg (Tobias), Anne Marie Clulow (Beggar Woman), Adam Pelkowitz (Beadle Bamford), Cameron Botha (Anthony), Sanli Jooste (Johanna), Germandt Geldenhuys (Adolfo Pirelli) and Weslee Swain Lauder (Jonas Fogg).


text: In 2015, Victorian Opera's production was performed at the Melbourne Arts Centre. The production was revived for New Zealand Opera in 2016, visiting Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.


text: The production starred Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Sweeney Todd, Antoinette Halloran as Mrs. Lovett, Phillip Rhodes as Judge Turpin, Kanen Breen as Beadle Bamford (later replaced by Andrew Glover during the New Zealand tour), David Rogers-Smith as Adolfo Pirelli (replaced by Robert Tucker in New Zealand), Ross Hannaford as Tobias Ragg (replaced by Joel Grainger in New Zealand), Blake Bowden as Anthony Hope (replaced James Benjamin Rodgers in New Zealand), Amelia Berry as Johanna, Dimity Shepherd as the Beggar Woman (replaced by Helen Medlyn in New Zealand), and Jeremy Kleeman as Jonas Fogg.


text: David Cuevas produced the first Mexican production of "Sweeney Todd". Opened on July 7, 2018, at the Foro Cultural Coyoacanense's starring Lupita Sandoval and Beto Torres along with José Andrés Mojica, Mario Beller, Eduardo Ibarra, Alejandra Desiderio, Sonia Monroy, Daniel Paéz and Adrian Mejia.


text: In June 2019, for the show's 40th anniversary, a limited run of the production presented by "Life Like Company" was performed at Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne and Darling Harbour Theatre, ICC Sydney. It starred Anthony Warlow as Sweeney Todd, Gina Riley as Mrs. Lovett, Debra Byrne as the Beggar Woman, Michael Falzon as Adolfo Pirelli, Jonathan Hickey as Tobias Ragg, and Daniel Sumegi as Judge Turpin.


text: Produced by Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group and directed by Bobby Garcia with musical direction by Gerard Salonga, it starred Jett Pangan as Sweeney Todd, Lea Salonga as Mrs. Lovett, Gerald Santos as Anthony Hope, Nyoy Volante as Adolfo Pirelli, Mikkie Bradshaw-Volante as Johanna, Ima Castro as the Beggar Woman, Andrew Fernando as Judge Turpin, Luigi Quesada as Tobias, Arman Ferrer as Beadle, and Dean Rosen as Jonas Fogg. The production debuted in October at The Theater at Solaire.


text: The first opera company to mount "Sweeney Todd" was the Houston Grand Opera in a production directed by Hal Prince, which ran from June 14, 1984 through June 24, 1984 for a total of 10 performances. Conducted by John DeMain, the production used scenic designs by Eugene Lee, costume designs by Franne Lee, and lighting designs by Ken Billington. The cast included Timothy Nolen in the title role, Joyce Castle as Mrs. Lovett, Cris Groenendaal as Anthony, Lee Merrill as Johanna, Will Roy as Judge Turpin, and Barry Busse as The Beadle.


text: In 1984 the show was presented by the New York City Opera. Hal Prince recreated the staging using the simplified set of the 2nd national tour. It was well received and most performances sold out. It was brought back for limited runs in 1986 and 2004. Notably the 2004 production starred Mark Delavan and Elaine Paige. The show was also performed by Opera North in 1998 in the UK starring Steven Page and Beverley Klein, directed by David McVicar and conducted by James Holmes.


text: In the early 2000s, "Sweeney Todd" gained acceptance with opera companies throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Israel, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Australia. Bryn Terfel, the popular Welsh bass-baritone, performed the title role at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2002, with Judith Christian, David Cangelosi, Timothy Nolen, Bonaventura Bottone, Celena Shaffer and Nathan Gunn. It was performed at the Royal Opera House in London as part of the Royal Opera season (December 2003 – January 2004) starring Sir Thomas Allen as Todd, Felicity Palmer as Mrs. Lovett and a supporting cast that included Rosalind Plowright, Robert Tear and Jonathan Veira as Judge Turpin. The Finnish National Opera performed Sweeney Todd in 1997–98. The Israeli National Opera has performed "Sweeney Todd" twice. The Icelandic Opera performed Sweeney Todd in the fall of 2004, the first time in Iceland. On September 12, 2015, "Sweeney Todd" opened at the San Francisco Opera with Brian Mulligan as Todd, Stephanie Blythe as Mrs. Lovett, Matthew Grills as Tobias, Heidi Stober as Johanna, Elliot Madore as Anthony and Elizabeth Futral as the Beggar Woman/Lucy.


text: A "Reprise!" Concert version was performed at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre on March 12–14, 1999 with Kelsey Grammer as Todd, Christine Baranski as Mrs. Lovett, Davis Gaines as Anthony, Neil Patrick Harris as Tobias, Melissa Manchester as The Beggar Woman, Roland Rusinek as The Beadle, Dale Kristien as Johanna and Ken Howard as Judge Turpin.


text: London's Royal Festival Hall hosted two performances on February 13, 2000, starring Len Cariou as Todd, Judy Kaye as Mrs. Lovett, and Davis Gaines as Anthony. A 4-day concert took place in July 2007 at the same venue with Bryn Terfel, Maria Friedman, Daniel Boys and Philip Quast.


text: Director Lonny Price directed a semi-staged concert production of "Sweeney Todd in Concert” on May 4–6, 2000 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, New York with the New York Philharmonic. The cast included George Hearn (a last-minute substitute for Bryn Terfel), Patti LuPone, Neil Patrick Harris, Davis Gaines, John Aler, Paul Plishka, Heidi Grant Murphy, Stanford Olsen and Audra McDonald. This concert also played in San Francisco, from July 19–21, 2001, with the San Francisco Symphony. Hearn and LuPone were joined once again by Harris, Gaines, Aler and Olsen as well as new additions Victoria Clark, Lisa Vroman and Timothy Nolen. This production was taped for PBS and broadcast in 2001, and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Classical Music-Dance Program. The same production played at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago on August 24, 2001, with most of the cast from the preceding concerts, except for Plishka and Clark, who were replaced by Sherrill Milnes and Hollis Resnik.


text: In 2014, Price directed a new concert production, returning to Avery Fisher Hall with the New York Philharmonic on March 5–8 with Bryn Terfel as Todd, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Lovett, Philip Quast as Judge Turpin, Jeff Blumenkrantz as The Beadle, Christian Borle as Pirelli, Kyle Brenn as Tobias, Jay Armstrong Johnson as Anthony, Erin Mackey as Johanna and Audra McDonald and Bryonha Marie Parham sharing the role of The Beggar Woman. McDonald was not announced as the Beggar Woman: she was a surprise, her name only being revealed at the time of the first performance. On the Saturday performances, Bryonha Marie Parham played the role of the Beggar Woman, while McDonald played it at the other performances. The concert was again filmed for broadcast on PBS as part of their Live from Lincoln Center series and was first aired on September 26, 2014. The production was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, winning one for Outstanding Special Class Program. This production transferred to London Coliseum Theatre for 13 performances from March 30 through April 12, 2015. The cast included original members like Terfel, Thompson and Quast, as well as new actors like John Owen-Jones and Rosalie Craig.


text: A of "Sweeney Todd", directed by Tim Burton with a screenplay by John Logan, was released on December 21, 2007. It stars Johnny Depp as Todd (Depp received an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award for his performance), Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, Sacha Baron Cohen as Signor Pirelli, Jamie Campbell Bower as Anthony Hope, Laura Michelle Kelly as The Beggar Woman, Jayne Wisener as Johanna, Ed Sanders as Toby, and Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford. The film was well received by critics and theatregoers and also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.


text: Stephen Sondheim believed that "Sweeney Todd" is a story of revenge and how it consumes a vengeful person. He asserted, "what the show is really about is obsession." Unlike most previous representations of the story, the musical avoids a simplistic view of devilish crimes. Instead, the characters’ “emotional and psychological depths” are examined, so that Sweeney Todd is understood as a victim as well as a perpetrator in the "great black pit" of humanity.


text: Sondheim's score is one of his most complex, with orchestrations by his long-time collaborator Jonathan Tunick. Relying heavily on counterpoint and angular harmonies, its compositional style has been compared to Maurice Ravel, Sergei Prokofiev, and Bernard Herrmann. Sondheim also utilizes the ancient "Dies irae" in the ballad that runs throughout the score, later heard in a melodic inversion, and in the accompaniment to "Epiphany". According to Raymond Knapp, "Most scene changes bring back 'The Ballad of Sweeney Todd', which includes both fast and slow versions of the 'Dies Irae'". He also relies heavily on leitmotif – at least twenty distinct ones can be identified throughout the score.


text: Depending on how and where the show is presented, it is sometimes considered an opera. Sondheim himself has described the piece as a "black operetta", and indeed, only about 20% of the show is spoken; the rest is sung-through.


text: In his essay for the 2005 cast album, Jeremy Sams finds it most relevant to compare Sondheim's work with operas that similarly explore the psyche of a mad murderer or social outcast, such as Alban Berg's "Wozzeck" (1925, based on the play by Georg Büchner) and Benjamin Britten's "Peter Grimes" (1945). On the other hand, it can be seen as a precursor to the later trend of musicals based on horror themes, such as "Little Shop of Horrors" (1982), "The Phantom of the Opera" (1986), "Jekyll & Hyde" (1997) and "Dance of the Vampires" (1997), which used the description of the trend, "grusical", as its commercial label. Theatre critic and author Martin Gottfried wrote on this subject: "Does so much singing make it an opera? Opera is not just a matter of everything being sung. There is an operatic kind of music, of singing, of staging. There are opera audiences, and there is an opera sensibility. There are opera "houses". "Sweeney Todd" has its occasional operatic moments, but its music overall has the chest notes, the harmonic language, the muscularity, and the edge of Broadway theater."


text: Donal Henahan wrote an essay in "The New York Times" concerning the 1984 New York City Opera production: "The difficulty with "Sweeney" was not that the opera singers were weaklings incapable of filling the State Theater with sound – Miss Elias, who was making her City Opera debut, has sung for many years at the Metropolitan, a far larger house. The other voices in the cast also were known quantities. Rather, it seemed to me that the attempt to actually sing the Sondheim score, which relies heavily on a dramatic parlando or speaking style, mainly showed how far from the operatic vocal tradition the work lies. The score, effective enough in its own way, demanded things of the opera singers that opera singers as a class are reluctant to produce."


text: The original Broadway pit consisted of a 26-piece orchestra. (The number of percussionists may vary for different shows, though the percussion book is written for two players).


text: An alternate orchestration is available from Music Theatre International for a 9 piece orchestra. It was written by Jonathan Tunick for the 1993 London Production.


text: Original orchestrator Jonathan Tunick revised his large orchestration for the 1993 London revival, adding a dirtier, grittier texture to the score's arrangements.


text: An original Broadway cast recording was released by RCA Red Seal in 1979. It included the Judge's "Johanna" and the tooth-pulling contest from Act I, which had been cut in previews. It was selected by the National Recording Registry for preservation in 2013.


text: A performance of the 1980 touring company was taped before an audience in 1981 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles during the first national tour, with additional taping done in an empty theatre for a television special. The resulting program was televised on September 12, 1982, on The Entertainment Channel. It was later released on both VHS and DVD.


text: On 2 July 1994, the Royal National Theatre revival production starring Denis Quilley and Julia McKenzie was broadcast by the BBC. Opera North's production was also broadcast by the BBC on March 30, 1998 as was the Royal Opera House production in 2003.


text: In 1995, the Barcelona cast recorded a cast album sung in Catalan. This production was also broadcast on Spanish television.


text: The 2000 New York City Concert was recorded and released in a deluxe 2-CD set. This recording was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.


text: In 2001, the same concert was held in San Francisco with the same leads and minor cast changes. It was also videotaped and broadcast on PBS, and then was released to VHS and DVD in 2001.


text: The 2005 Broadway revival also was recorded. The producers originally planned only a single-disk "highlights" version; however, they soon realized that they had recorded more music than could fit on one disk and it was not financially feasible to bring the performers back in to re-record. The following songs were cut: "Wigmaker Sequence", "The Letter", "Parlor Songs", "City on Fire", and half of the final sequence (which includes "The Judge's Return"). This recording was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.


text: The 2012 London revival was recorded and released on April 2, 2012 in the UK and April 10, 2012 in the United States.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Elizabeth is a 1998 British biographical period drama film directed by Shekhar Kapur and written by Michael Hirst. It stars Cate Blanchett in the title role of Elizabeth I of England, with Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Fiennes, John Gielgud, and Richard Attenborough in supporting roles. The film is based on the early years of Elizabeth's reign, where she is elevated to the throne after the death of her half-sister Mary I, who had imprisoned her. As she establishes herself on the throne, she faces plots and threats to take her down.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: "Elizabeth" premiered at the 55th Venice International Film Festival on 8 September 1998 and was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 23 October. The film became a critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised Kapur's direction, costume design, production values and most notably Blanchett's titular performance, bringing her to international recognition, while the film grossed $82 million against its $30 million budget.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: The film received three nominations at the 56th Golden Globe Awards, including for the Best Motion Picture – Drama, with Blanchett winning Best Actress. It received twelve nominations at the 52nd British Academy Film Awards, winning five awards, including Outstanding British Film, and Best Actress (for Blanchett). At the 71st Academy Awards, it received seven nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actress (for Blanchett), winning Best Makeup. In 2007, Blanchett and Rush reprised their roles in Kapur's follow-up film "", which covers the later part of Elizabeth's reign.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: In 1558, Catholic Queen Mary (Kathy Burke) dies from a cancerous tumour in her womb. Mary's heir and Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett), under house arrest for conspiracy charges, is freed and crowned the Queen of England.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: As briefed by her adviser William Cecil (Richard Attenborough), Elizabeth inherits a distressed England besieged by debts, crumbling infrastructure, hostile neighbours, and treasonous nobles within her administration, chief among them the Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston). Cecil advises Elizabeth to marry, produce an heir, and secure her rule. Unimpressed with her suitors, Elizabeth delays her decision and continues her secret affair with Lord Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes). Cecil appoints Francis Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), a Protestant exile returned from France, to act as Elizabeth's bodyguard and adviser.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Mary of Guise (Fanny Ardant) lands an additional 4,000 French troops in neighbouring Scotland. Unfamiliar with military strategy and browbeaten by Norfolk at the war council, Elizabeth orders a military response, which proves disastrous when the professional French soldiers defeat the inexperienced, ill-trained English forces. Walsingham tells Elizabeth that Catholic lords and priests intentionally deprived Elizabeth's army of proper soldiers and used their defeat to argue for Elizabeth's removal. Realising the depth of the conspiracy against her and her dwindling options, Elizabeth accepts Mary of Guise's conditions to consider marrying her nephew Henry of France.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: To stabilize her rule and heal England's religious divisions, Elizabeth proposes the Act of Uniformity, which unites English Christians under the Church of England and severs their connection to the Vatican. In response to the Act's passage, the Vatican sends a priest to England to aid Norfolk and his cohorts in their growing plot to overthrow Elizabeth. Unaware of the plot, Elizabeth meets Henry of France but ignores his advances in favour of Lord Robert. William Cecil confronts Elizabeth over her indecisiveness about marrying and reveals Lord Robert is married to another woman. Elizabeth rejects Henry's marriage proposal when she discovers he is a cross-dresser and confronts Lord Robert about his secrets, fracturing their idyllic affair and banishing him from her private residence.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Elizabeth survives an assassination attempt, whose evidence implicates Mary of Guise. Elizabeth sends Walsingham to meet with Mary secretly in Scotland, under the guise of once again planning to marry Henry. Instead, Walsingham assassinates Guise, inciting French enmity against Elizabeth. When William Cecil asks her to solidify relations with the Spanish, Elizabeth dismisses him from her service, choosing instead to follow her own counsel.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Walsingham warns of another plot to kill Elizabeth spearheaded by the priest from Rome carrying letters of conspiracy. Under Elizabeth's orders, Walsingham apprehends the priest, who divulges the names of the conspirators and a Vatican agreement to elevate Norfolk to the English crown if he weds Mary, Queen of Scots. Walsingham arrests Norfolk and executes him and every conspirator except Lord Robert. Elizabeth grants Lord Robert his life as a reminder to herself how close she came to danger.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Drawing inspiration from the divine, Elizabeth cuts her hair and models her appearance after the Virgin Mary. Proclaiming herself married to England, she ascends the throne as "the Virgin Queen".


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: The costuming and shot composition of the coronation scene are based on Elizabeth's coronation portrait.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Kapur's original choice for the role was Emily Watson, but she turned it down. Cate Blanchett was chosen to play Elizabeth after Kapur saw a trailer of "Oscar and Lucinda".


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: According to the director's commentary, Kapur mentioned that the role of the Pope (played by Sir John Gielgud) was originally offered to, and accepted by, Marlon Brando. However, plans changed when Kapur noted that many on set would probably be concerned that Brando would be sharing the set with them for two days. Later, when Gielgud had taken the role, Kapur at one point suggested (in vain) that the Pope's accent should be Italian; he added that every British actor within earshot was horrified that any director was asking Sir John Gielgud to speak in an accent that "wasn't John Gielgud".


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: A large proportion of the indoor filming, representing the royal palace, was conducted in various corners of Durham Cathedral—its unique nave pillars are clearly identifiable.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: "Elizabeth" received some criticism for factual liberties it takes and for its distortion of the historical timeline to present events which occurred in the middle to later part of Elizabeth's reign as occurring at the beginning. In his entry for Elizabeth I in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Patrick Collinson described the film "as if the known facts of the reign, plus many hitherto unknown, were shaken up like pieces of a jigsaw and scattered on the table at random." Carole Levin, reviewing the film in 1999 for "Perspectives on History", criticized the movie for portraying Elizabeth as "a very weak and flighty character who often showed terrible judgment", in contrast to historical descriptions of her as a strong, decisive, and intelligent ruler. In particular, Levin scrutinized the movie's portrayal of Elizabeth as dependent on Walsingham, in addition to the completely inaccurate portrayal of her relationship with Robert Dudley, as being instances in the film where the character appears weak and overpowered by the men around her.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: There are inaccuracies in the timeline of events prior to her accession. The film depicts Mary I of England as being pregnant prior to Elizabeth's imprisonment. In actuality, Elizabeth was imprisoned on 18 March 1554 and released in May; it was not announced that the Queen was believed to be pregnant until September of that same year.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Elizabeth was put under house arrest at Woodstock Palace, not Hatfield House, but did not remain there until her sister's death. On 17 April 1555, she was summoned to Hampton Court to be with Mary during the Queen's delivery. When the Queen did not deliver, Elizabeth remained at court through 18 October 1555 until after it had become apparent that Mary was not pregnant and after the Queen's husband Philip II of Spain had gone abroad. It was only after this time that Elizabeth was finally able to return to Hatfield.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester is wrongly depicted as having been a co-conspirator in the plot against Elizabeth. In fact, he remained one of Elizabeth's closest friends until his death in 1588, long after their romantic relationship had ended. The movie portrays Elizabeth as being ignorant of the fact that Dudley is married; it is her discovery of this fact that contributes to the breakdown of their relationship. In reality, Elizabeth was fully aware of Dudley's marriage to his first wife, Amy Robsart, who lived in isolation in the country suffering from breast cancer. Robsart died from a fall down the stairs in 1560, two years into Elizabeth's reign, a fact never mentioned in the film. He never converted to Catholicism either, remaining a staunch Protestant and Puritan all his life.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: In the film, England is forced to send young and untrained soldiers, including children, to fight in Scotland against the French Queen Regent, Mary of Guise, who is said to be plotting to invade England, because the Catholic bishops spoke in the pulpits against raising a professional army. In truth, Mary of Guise was not planning on invading England, but was crushing a Protestant revolt amongst the Scots. Elizabeth had also had all the English Catholic bishops thrown in prison before the conflict even began, and the English actually did send professional soldiers to fight in Scotland. They were defeated in battle not because they were untrained children sabotaged by traitorous Catholic clergy, but because they were simply outfought by the French. The Act of Supremacy 1558 and the Act of Uniformity of 1559 are shown taken place after the Siege of Leith, however, the Acts took place before the Siege ended in 1560.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Sir Francis Walsingham did not have a significant role in Elizabeth's reign until 1573 and is already knighted before her reign. He did not meet Mary of Guise nor was he a sceptic towards religion.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: William Cecil, Baron Burghley was portrayed by the 75-year-old Richard Attenborough in the film, but the real Lord Burghley was only 38 years old when Elizabeth was crowned, thirteen years older than she. Likewise she never compelled him to retire, as is depicted in the film. He remained her chief advisor and was Lord High Treasurer from 1572 until his death in 1598. Similarly, the film depicts Cecil being given the title Lord Burghley before the Northern Rising of 1569. In fact, he was given this title two years after this in 1571.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: The film portrays Kat Ashley, head lady-in-waiting to the Queen, as being the same age as Elizabeth, but in reality, at the time of the then-25-year-old Elizabeth's coronation, Ashley was around 57, and she died six years later in 1565.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk was not a cold and calculating power-hungry mastermind, but a gullible co-conspirator in a couple of assassination plots.The first was the Northern Uprising, which alone was enough to get him jailed for nine months in the Tower of London, before Elizabeth released him to house arrest. The second, the Ridolfi plot, was a plot to assassinate Elizabeth, place Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne, and have her marry Norfolk. Norfolk was beheaded for his role in this plot as he had been bankrolling the conspirators. He is also seen to have one mistress, the fictitious Lettice Howard. During Mary's reign he was married to Mary FitzAlan and when the movie ends(1563) he was married to Margaret Audley but because the actual Ridolfi Plot was 10 years after the film's timeline, he had three wives with his third wife being Elizabeth Leyburne.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: The character of Isabel Knollys was inspired by Lettice Knollys portrayed by Kelly MacDonald, Elizabeth's lady-in-waiting who married Lord Robert Dudley in 1578. She did not die by a poisoned dress and died in 1634. Their romantic connection is shown on screen.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Bishop Stephen Gardiner died in 1555, before Elizabeth came to the throne and thus cannot possibly have been involved in the Ridolfi plot. The Earl of Arundel was not executed for his role, but was instead imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he died as a political prisoner, and the Earl of Sussex was actually a loyal supporter of Elizabeth who would not have tried to overthrow her. Arundel is shown to have a wife, a son and a daughter, however, his son died in 1556, his first daughter, Jane Lumley was born in 1537 and his second daughter was Mary FitzAlan. He had two wives, Lady Katherine Grey and Mary Arundell both of which never saw Elizabeth's ascension to the throne. Alvaro de la Quadra died in 1564 and therefore, did not participate in the conspiracy of the Ridolfi Plot.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: John Ballard is introduced beating the young Sir Thomas Elyot to death with a rock, an event that cannot have occurred because Elyot died in 1546, before Elizabeth even came to the throne, at the age of 55 or 56. Elyot was a diplomat and not a young spy under Walsingham. Ballard was not in England to assassinate Elizabeth, although he did initiate the Babington plot to overthrow her (the movie treats both this and the separate Ridolfi plot as one scheme). He also had the cover story of being a soldier and well-dressed swashbuckler, while the movie portrays him as merely a drab, humourless fanatic. His death—he was hanged, drawn and quartered alive, along with some of the other conspirators in the Babington plot—was also so shocking and brutal to witnesses that Elizabeth forbade that method being used again.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: Although the idea of marriage to Henry, Duke of Anjou (who was actually not Mary's nephew but the son of Henry II) was briefly entertained, Elizabeth never actually met him, and moreover there is no evidence that he was a cross-dresser, as depicted in the film. Further, the movie portrays the courtship as occurring at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, when in fact it occurred in 1570, twelve years into her rule. The film also glosses over the considerable real-life age difference between the Queen and Henry (in 1570 she was 37 years-old and he 19). It was Henry's younger brother Francis, Duke of Anjou, 22 years younger than Elizabeth, who seriously pursued the English queen beginning in 1578, when she was 45 years old and he was 23.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: At the end of the film, Elizabeth is shown as having decided against marriage. In fact, she entertained the idea of marriage with several European monarchs well into middle age. Candidates included her former brother-in-law, Philip II of Spain; Archduke Charles of Austria; Eric XIV of Sweden; Adolphus, Duke of Holstein; and the Valois princes Francis and Henry (later King Henry III of France and Poland).


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: "Elizabeth" premiered in September 1998 at the Venice Film Festival; it was also shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. It premiered in London on 2 October 1998 and it premiered in the United States on 13 October 1998. It opened in the United Kingdom on 23 October 1998 and opened in limited release in the United States in nine cinemas on 6 November 1998, grossing $275,131. Its widest release in the United States and Canada was in 624 cinemas, and its largest weekend gross throughout its run in cinemas in the US and Canada was $3.8 million in 516 cinemas, ranking No.9 at the box office. "Elizabeth" went on to gross $30 million in the United States and Canada, and a total of $82 million worldwide.


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: The film was well received by critics. It holds an approval rating of 83% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 63 reviews, with an average score of 7.30/10. The site's consensus reads: "No mere historical drama, "Elizabeth" is a rich, suspenseful journey into the heart of British Royal politics, and features a typically outstanding performance from Cate Blanchett." Metacritic reports a score of 75 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Elizabeth (film)

text: The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights accused the film of anti-Catholicism, stating that the film gives the "impression that the religious strife was all the doing of the Catholic Church", noting that the review in "The New York Times" considered it "resolutely anti-Catholic" complete with a "scheming pope" and repeating the charge made in the "Buffalo News" that "every single Catholic in the film is dark, cruel and devious."


title: Cupid

text: In classical mythology, Cupid (Latin Cupīdō , meaning "passionate desire") is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus and the god of war Mars. He is also known in Latin as "" ("Love"). His Greek counterpart is Eros.


title: Cupid

text: Although Eros is generally portrayed as a slender winged youth in Classical Greek art, during the Hellenistic period, he was increasingly portrayed as a chubby boy. During this time, his iconography acquired the bow and arrow that represent his source of power: a person, or even a deity, who is shot by Cupid's arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire. In myths, Cupid is a minor character who serves mostly to set the plot in motion. He is a main character only in the tale of Cupid and Psyche, when wounded by his own weapons, he experiences the ordeal of love. Although other extended stories are not told about him, his tradition is rich in poetic themes and visual scenarios, such as "Love conquers all" and the retaliatory punishment or torture of Cupid.


title: Cupid

text: In art, Cupid often appears in multiples as the Amores, or "" in the later terminology of art history, the equivalent of the Greek erotes. Cupids are a frequent motif of both Roman art and later Western art of the classical tradition. In the 15th century, the iconography of Cupid starts to become indistinguishable from the putto.


title: Cupid

text: Cupid continued to be a popular figure in the Middle Ages, when under Christian influence he often had a dual nature as Heavenly and Earthly love. In the Renaissance, a renewed interest in classical philosophy endowed him with complex allegorical meanings. In contemporary popular culture, Cupid is shown drawing his bow to inspire romantic love, often as an icon of Valentine's Day. Cupid's powers are similar, though not identical, to Kamadeva, the Hindu god of human love.


title: Cupid

text: The name "Cupīdō" ('passionate desire') is a derivative of Latin "cupiō", "cupĕre" ('to desire'), itself from Proto-Italic "*kup-i-", which may reflect "*kup-ei-" ('to desire'; cf. Umbrian "cupras", South Picene "kuprí"). The latter ultimately stems from the Proto-Indo-European verbal stem "*kup-(e)i-" ('to tremble, desire'; cf. Old Irish "accobor" 'desire', Sanskrit "prá-kupita"- 'trembling, quaking', Old Church Slavonic "kypĕti" 'to simmer, boil').


title: Cupid

text: The Romans reinterpreted myths and concepts pertaining to the Greek Eros for Cupid in their own literature and art, and medieval and Renaissance mythographers conflate the two freely. In the Greek tradition, Eros had a dual, contradictory genealogy. He was among the primordial gods who came into existence asexually; after his generation, deities were begotten through male-female unions. In Hesiod's "Theogony", only Chaos and Gaia (Earth) are older. Before the existence of gender dichotomy, Eros functioned by causing entities to separate from themselves that which they already contained.


title: Cupid

text: At the same time, the Eros who was pictured as a boy or slim youth was regarded as the child of a divine couple, the identity of whom varied by source. The influential Renaissance mythographer Natale Conti began his chapter on Cupid/Eros by declaring that the Greeks themselves were unsure about his parentage: Heaven and Earth, Ares and Aphrodite, Night and Ether, or Strife and Zephyr. The Greek travel writer Pausanias, he notes, contradicts himself by saying at one point that Eros welcomed Aphrodite into the world, and at another that Eros was the son of Aphrodite and the youngest of the gods.


title: Cupid

text: In Latin literature, Cupid is usually treated as the son of Venus without reference to a father. Seneca says that Vulcan, as the husband of Venus, is the father of Cupid. Cicero, however, says that there were three Cupids, as well as three Venuses: the first Cupid was the son of Mercury and Diana, the second of Mercury and the second Venus, and the third of Mars and the third Venus. This last Cupid was the equivalent of Anteros, "Counter-Love", one of the Erotes, the gods who embody aspects of love. The multiple Cupids frolicking in art are the decorative manifestation of these proliferating loves and desires. During the English Renaissance, Christopher Marlowe wrote of "ten thousand Cupids"; in Ben Jonson's wedding masque "Hymenaei", "a thousand several-coloured loves ... hop about the nuptial room".


title: Cupid

text: In the later classical tradition, Cupid is most often regarded as the son of Venus and Mars, whose love affair represented an allegory of Love and War. The duality between the primordial and the sexually conceived Eros accommodated philosophical concepts of Heavenly and Earthly Love even in the Christian era.


title: Cupid

text: Cupid is winged, allegedly because lovers are flighty and likely to change their minds, and boyish because love is irrational. His symbols are the arrow and torch, "because love wounds and inflames the heart". These attributes and their interpretation were established by late antiquity, as summarized by Isidore of Seville (d. 636 AD) in his "Etymologiae". Cupid is also sometimes depicted blindfolded and described as blind, not so much in the sense of sightless—since the sight of the beloved can be a spur to love—as blinkered and arbitrary. As described by Shakespeare in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1590s):


title: Cupid

text: In Botticelli's "Allegory of Spring" (1482), also known by its Italian title "La Primavera", Cupid is shown blindfolded while shooting his arrow, positioned above the central figure of Venus.


title: Cupid

text: Particularly in ancient Roman art, cupids may also carry or be surrounded by fruits, animals, or attributes of the Seasons or the wine-god Dionysus, symbolizing the earth's generative capacity.


title: Cupid

text: Cupid carries two kinds of arrows, or darts, one with a sharp golden point, and the other with a blunt tip of lead. A person wounded by the golden arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire, but the one struck by the lead feels aversion and desires only to flee. The use of these arrows is described by the Latin poet Ovid in the first book of his "Metamorphoses". When Apollo taunts Cupid as the lesser archer, Cupid shoots him with the golden arrow, but strikes the object of his desire, the nymph Daphne, with the lead. Trapped by Apollo's unwanted advances, Daphne prays to her father, the river god Peneus, who turns her into a laurel, the tree sacred to Apollo. It is the first of several unsuccessful or tragic love affairs for Apollo. This theme is somewhat mirrored in the story of Echo and Narcissus, as the goddess Juno forces the nymph Echo's love upon Narcisuss, who is cursed by the goddess Nemesis to be self absorbed and unresponsive to her desires.


title: Cupid

text: A variation is found in "The Kingis Quair", a 15th-century poem attributed to James I of Scotland, in which Cupid has three arrows: gold, for a gentle "smiting" that is easily cured; the more compelling silver; and steel, for a love-wound that never heals.


title: Cupid

text: In the tale of Cupid the honey thief, the child-god is stung by bees when he steals honey from their hive. He cries and runs to his mother Venus, complaining that so small a creature shouldn't cause such painful wounds. Venus laughs, and points out the poetic justice: he too is small, and yet delivers the sting of love.


title: Cupid

text: The story was first told about Eros in the "Idylls" of Theocritus (3rd century BC). It was retold numerous times in both art and poetry during the Renaissance. The theme brought the "Amoretti" poetry cycle (1595) of Edmund Spenser to a conclusion, and furnished subject matter for at least twenty works by Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop. The German poet and classicist Karl Philipp Conz (1762–1827) framed the tale as "Schadenfreude" ("taking pleasure in someone else's pain") in a poem by the same title. In a version by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a writer of the German Enlightenment, the incident prompts Cupid to turn himself into a bee:


title: Cupid

text:
Through this sting was Amor made wiser.
The untiring deceiver
concocted another battle-plan:
he lurked beneath the carnations and roses
and when a maiden came to pick them,
he flew out as a bee and stung her.


title: Cupid

text: The image of Cupid as a bee is part of a complex tradition of poetic imagery involving the flower of youth, the sting of love as a deflowering, and honey as a secretion of love.


title: Cupid

text: In both ancient and later art, Cupid is often shown riding a dolphin. On ancient Roman sarcophagi, the image may represent the soul's journey, originally associated with Dionysian religion. A mosaic from late Roman Britain shows a procession emerging from the mouth of the sea god Neptune, first dolphins and then sea birds, ascending to Cupid. One interpretation of this allegory is that Neptune represents the soul's origin in the matter from which life was fashioned, with Cupid triumphing as the soul's desired destiny.


title: Cupid

text: In other contexts, Cupid with a dolphin recurs as a playful motif, as in garden statuary at Pompeii that shows a dolphin rescuing Cupid from an octopus, or Cupid holding a dolphin. The dolphin, often elaborated fantastically, might be constructed as a spout for a fountain. On a modern-era fountain in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, Cupid seems to be strangling a dolphin.


title: Cupid

text: Dolphins were often portrayed in antiquity as friendly to humans, and the dolphin itself could represent affection. Pliny records a tale of a dolphin at Puteoli carrying a boy on its back across a lake to go to school each day; when the boy died, the dolphin grieved itself to death.


title: Cupid

text: In erotic scenes from mythology, Cupid riding the dolphin may convey how swiftly love moves, or the Cupid astride a sea beast may be a reassuring presence for the wild ride of love. A dolphin-riding Cupid may attend scenes depicting the wedding of Neptune and Amphitrite or the Triumph of Neptune, also known as a marine "thiasos".


title: Cupid

text: To adapt myths for Christian use, medieval mythographers interpreted them morally. In this view, Cupid is seen as a "demon of fornication". The innovative Theodulf of Orleans, who wrote during the reign of Charlemagne, reinterpreted Cupid as a seductive but malicious figure who exploits desire to draw people into an allegorical underworld of vice. To Theodulf, Cupid's quiver symbolized his depraved mind, his bow trickery, his arrows poison, and his torch burning passion. It was appropriate to portray him naked, so as not to conceal his deception and evil. This conception largely followed his attachments to lust, but would later be diluted as many Christians embraced Cupid as a symbolic representation of love.


title: Cupid

text: Cupid sleeping became a symbol of absent or languishing love in Renaissance poetry and art, including a "Sleeping Cupid" (1496) by Michelangelo that is now lost. The ancient type was known at the time through descriptions in classical literature, and at least one extant example had been displayed in the sculpture garden of Lorenzo de' Medici since 1488. In the 1st century AD, Pliny had described two marble versions of a "Cupid" (Eros), one at Thespiae and a nude at Parium, where it was the stained object of erotic fascination.


title: Cupid

text: Michelangelo's work was important in establishing the reputation of the young artist, who was only twenty at the time. At the request of his patron, he increased its value by deliberately making it look "antique", thus creating "his most notorious fake". After the deception was acknowledged, the "Cupid Sleeping" was displayed as evidence of his virtuosity alongside an ancient marble, attributed to Praxiteles, of Cupid asleep on a lion skin.


title: Cupid

text: In the poetry of Giambattista Marino (d. 1625), the image of Cupid or "Amore" sleeping represents the indolence of Love in the lap of Idleness. A madrigal by his literary rival Gaspare Murtola exhorted artists to paint the theme. A catalogue of works from antiquity collected by the Mattei family, patrons of Caravaggio, included sketches of sleeping cupids based on sculpture from the Temple of Venus Erycina in Rome. Caravaggio, whose works Murtola is known for describing, took up the challenge with his 1608 "Sleeping Cupid", a disturbing depiction of an unhealthy, immobilized child with "jaundiced skin, flushed cheeks, bluish lips and ears, the emaciated chest and swollen belly, the wasted muscles and inflamed joints". The model is thought to have suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Caravaggio's sleeping Cupid was reconceived in fresco by Giovanni da San Giovanni, and the subject recurred throughout Roman and Italian work of the period.


title: Cupid

text: Earlier in his career, Caravaggio had challenged contemporary sensibilities with his "sexually provocative and anti-intellectual" "Victorious Love", also known as "Love Conquers All" "(Amor Vincit Omnia)", in which a brazenly naked Cupid tramples on emblems of culture and erudition representing music, architecture, warfare, and scholarship.


title: Cupid

text: The motto comes from the Augustan poet Vergil, writing in the late 1st century BC. His collection of "Eclogues" concludes with what might be his most famous line:"Omnia vincit Amor: et nos cedamus Amori."<br>Love conquers all, and so let us surrender ourselves to Love.


title: Cupid

text: The ancient Roman "Cupid" was a god who embodied desire, but he had no temples or religious practices independent of other Roman deities such as Venus, whom he often accompanies as a side figure in cult statues. A Cupid might appear among the several statuettes for private devotion in a household shrine, but there is no clear distinction between figures for veneration and those displayed as art or decoration. This is a distinction from his Greek equivalent, Eros, who was commonly worshipped alongside his mother Aphrodite, and was even given a sacred day upon the 4th of every month. Roman temples often served a secondary purpose as art museums, and Cicero mentions a statue of "Cupid" (Eros) by Praxiteles that was consecrated at a "sacrarium" and received religious veneration jointly with Hercules. An inscription from Cártama in Roman Spain records statues of Mars and Cupid among the public works of a wealthy female priest "(sacerdos perpetua)", and another list of benefactions by a procurator of Baetica includes statues of Venus and Cupid.


title: Cupid

text: Cupid became more common in Roman art from the time of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. After the Battle of Actium, when Antony and Cleopatra were defeated, Cupid transferring the weapons of Mars to his mother Venus became a motif of Augustan imagery. In the "Aeneid", the national epic of Rome by the poet Virgil, Cupid disguises himself as Iulus, the son of Aeneas who was in turn the son of Venus herself, and in this form he beguiles Queen Dido of Carthage to fall in love with the hero. She gives safe harbor to Aeneas and his band of refugees from Troy, only to be abandoned by him as he fulfills his destiny to found Rome. Iulus (also known as Ascanius) becomes the mythical founder of the Julian family from which Julius Caesar came. Augustus, Caesar's heir, commemorated a beloved great-grandson who died as a child by having him portrayed as Cupid, dedicating one such statue at the Temple of Venus on the Capitoline Hill, and keeping one in his bedroom where he kissed it at night. A brother of this child became the emperor Claudius, whose mother Antonia appears in a surviving portrait-sculpture as Venus, with Cupid on her shoulder. The "Augustus of Prima Porta" is accompanied by a Cupid riding a dolphin. Cupids in multiples appeared on the friezes of the Temple of Venus Genetrix (Venus as "Begetting Mother"), and influenced scenes of relief sculpture on other works such as sarcophagi, particularly those of children.


title: Cupid

text: As a winged figure, "Cupido" shared some characteristics with the goddess "Victoria". On coinage issued by Sulla the dictator, Cupid bears the palm branch, the most common attribute of Victory. "Desire" in Roman culture was often attached to power as well as to erotic attraction. Roman historians criticize "cupido gloriae", "desire for glory", and "cupido imperii", "desire for ruling power". In Latin philosophical discourse, "cupido" is the equivalent of Greek "pothos", a focus of reflections on the meaning and burden of desire. In depicting the "pious love" "(amor pius)" of Nisus and Euryalus in the "Aeneid," Vergil has Nisus wonder:Is it the gods who put passion in men's mind, Euryalus, or does each person's fierce desire "(cupido)" become his own God? In Lucretius' physics of sex, "cupido" can represent human lust and an animal instinct to mate, but also the impulse of atoms to bond and form matter. An association of sex and violence is found in the erotic fascination for gladiators, who often had sexualized names such as "Cupido".


title: Cupid

text: Cupid was the enemy of chastity, and the poet Ovid opposes him to Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt who likewise carries a bow but who hates Cupid's passion-provoking arrows. Cupid is also at odds with Apollo, the archer-brother of Diana and patron of poetic inspiration whose love affairs almost always end disastrously. Ovid blames Cupid for causing him to write love poetry instead of the more respectable epic.


title: Cupid

text: The story of Cupid and Psyche appears in Greek art as early as the 4th century BC, but the most extended literary source of the tale is the Latin novel "Metamorphoses", also known as "The Golden Ass", by Apuleius (2nd century AD). It concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyche ("Soul" or "Breath of Life") and Cupid, and their ultimate union in marriage.


title: Cupid

text: The fame of Psyche's beauty threatens to eclipse that of Venus herself, and the love goddess sends Cupid to work her revenge. Cupid, however, becomes enamored of Psyche, and arranges for her to be taken to his palace. He visits her by night, warning her not to try to look upon him. Psyche's envious sisters convince her that her lover must be a hideous monster, and she finally introduces a lamp into their chamber to see him. Startled by his beauty, she drips hot oil from the lamp and wakes him. He abandons her. She wanders the earth looking for him, and finally submits to the service of Venus, who tortures her. The goddess then sends Psyche on a series of quests. Each time she despairs, and each time she is given divine aid. On her final task, she is to retrieve a dose of Proserpina's beauty from the underworld. She succeeds, but on the way back can't resist opening the box in the hope of benefitting from it herself, whereupon she falls into a torpid sleep. Cupid finds her in this state, and revives her by returning the sleep to the box. Cupid grants her immortality so the couple can be wed as equals.


title: Cupid

text: The story's Neoplatonic elements and allusions to mystery religions accommodate multiple interpretations, and it has been analyzed as an allegory and in light of folktale, Märchen or fairy tale, and myth. Often presented as an allegory of love overcoming death, the story was a frequent source of imagery for Roman sarcophagi and other extant art of antiquity. Since the rediscovery of Apuleius's novel in the Renaissance, the reception of "Cupid and Psyche" in the classical tradition has been extensive. The story has been retold in poetry, drama, and opera, and depicted widely in painting, sculpture, and various media. It has also played a role in popular culture as an example for "true love", and is commonly used in relation to the holiday Valentine's Day.


title: Cupid

text: "La Belle et la Bête" ("The Beauty and the Beast") was written by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, and then abridged by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1740; in 1991 it inspired the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast". It has been said that Gabrielle was inspired by the tale "Cupid and Psyche".


title: Cupid

text: On gems and other surviving pieces, Cupid is usually shown amusing himself with adult play, sometimes driving a hoop, throwing darts, catching a butterfly, or flirting with a nymph. He is often depicted with his mother (in graphic arts, this is nearly always Venus), playing a horn. In other images, his mother is depicted scolding or even spanking him due to his mischievous nature. He is also shown wearing a helmet and carrying a buckler, perhaps in reference to Virgil's "Omnia vincit amor" or as political satire on wars for love, or love as war. Traditionally, Cupid was portrayed nude in the style of Classical art, but more modern depictions show him wearing a diaper, sash, and/or wings.


title: Chris Messina

text: Christopher Messina (born August 11, 1974) is an American actor, director, writer, and producer. He is best known for starring as Danny Castellano in the Fox/Hulu romantic comedy series "The Mindy Project" (2012–2017), which earned him two nominations for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series.


title: Chris Messina

text: He has appeared in films such as "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (2008), "Julie & Julia" (2009), "Devil" (2010), "Argo" (2012), "Ruby Sparks" (2012), "Celeste and Jesse Forever" (2012), "Cake" (2014), "Birds of Prey" (2020), and "I Care a Lot" (2020). Messina wrote, executive produced, and starred in the comedy film "Fairhaven" (2012). He also directed and starred in the drama film "Alex of Venice" (2014).


title: Chris Messina

text: On television, Messina appeared in such roles as Ted Fairwell in the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under" (2005), Chris Sanchez in the Audience Network legal thriller series "Damages" (2011–2012), Reese Lansing in the HBO political drama series "The Newsroom" (2012–2014), Richard Willis in the HBO miniseries "Sharp Objects" (2018), as Nick Haas in the USA Network crime drama series "The Sinner" (2020) and as Angelo Lano in the Starz political miniseries "Gaslit" (2022).


title: Chris Messina

text: Messina was raised in Northport, New York, on Long Island, where he studied theater in high school. He attended Marymount Manhattan College, but dropped out after one semester.


title: Chris Messina

text: He studied acting privately with teachers around Manhattan, and started his career as an off-Broadway actor. He has appeared in episodes of the television series "Law & Order", "Third Watch", and "Medium". He had a recurring role in the fifth and final season of the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under" as Ted Fairwell. His film credits include "Rounders", "The Siege", "You've Got Mail", and "Towelhead".


title: Chris Messina

text: He starred in an HBO pilot "Anatomy of Hope", directed by J. J. Abrams. Simon Callow also starred, but the pilot was not picked up to series. In October 2007, "Daily Variety" named him as one of ten actors to watch. He starred in "Devil", under the direction of John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle, for producer M. Night Shyamalan and Universal Pictures. In April 2010, "Monogamy", directed by Dana Adam Shapiro and starring Messina and Rashida Jones, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, where the film won the jury prize for Best New York Narrative.


title: Chris Messina

text: Messina joined the cast of "Damages" for its fourth and fifth seasons. He played a recurring character on HBO's "The Newsroom". Messina was a series regular on the Fox/Hulu sitcom "The Mindy Project", playing Dr. Danny Castellano, until his character was eventually phased out in seasons 4 & 5. He makes his return in three episodes, including the season and series finale, in season 6.


title: Chris Messina

text: In 2014, Messina played the role of a cheating spouse in the music video for Sam Smith's "I'm Not the Only One". That same year, he directed the independent drama, "Alex of Venice", starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Don Johnson and Matthew Del Negro. He co-starred in Ben Affleck's crime drama "Live by Night", which was released in December 2016. In 2018, Messina starred in a leading role alongside Amy Adams in the HBO series "Sharp Objects".


title: Chris Messina

text: In 2020, Chris Messina starred as mob killer Victor Zsasz in "Birds of Prey". When asked how he felt about playing a twisted character, Messina replied, "I've played too many nice guys in my career. So it was like just really a lot of fun to let loose."


title: Chris Messina

text: Messina and his wife Jennifer Todd have two sons, Milo and Giovanni, born in 2008 and 2009, respectively. He was previously married to actress Rosemarie DeWitt for 12 years, divorcing in 2006.


title: Fula people

text: The Fula, Fulani, or Fulɓe people (, ; ; ; ; ; ) are one of the largest ethnic groups in the Sahel and West Africa, widely dispersed across the region. Inhabiting many countries, they live mainly in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa, South Sudan, Darfur, and regions near the Red Sea coast in Sudan. The approximate number of Fula people is unknown due to clashing definitions regarding Fula ethnicity. Various estimates put the figure between 25 and 40 million people worldwide.


title: Fula people

text: A significant proportion of the Fula – a third, or an estimated 12 to 13 million – are pastoralists, and their ethnic group has the largest nomadic pastoral community in the world. The majority of the Fula ethnic group consisted of semi-sedentary people as well as sedentary settled farmers, scholars, artisans, merchants, and nobility. As an ethnic group, they are bound together by the Fula language, their history and their culture. More than 99% of the Fula are Muslims.


title: Fula people

text: Many West African leaders are of Fulani descent including the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari; the President of Senegal, Macky Sall; the President of Gambia, Adama Barrow; the President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló; the Vice President of Sierra Leone, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh; and the Prime Minister of Mali, Boubou Cisse. They also occupy positions in major international institutions, such as the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Amina J. Mohammed; the 74th President of the United Nations General Assembly, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande; and the Secretary-General of OPEC, Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo.


title: Fula people

text: There are many names (and spellings of the names) used in other languages to refer to the "Fulɓe". "Fulani" in English is borrowed from the Hausa term. "Fula", from Manding languages, is also used in English, and sometimes spelled "Fulah" or "Fullah". Fula and Fulani are commonly used in English, including within Africa. The French borrowed the Wolof term "Pël", which is variously spelled: "Peul", "Peulh", and even "Peuhl". More recently the Fulfulde / Pulaar term "Fulɓe", which is a plural noun (singular, "Pullo") has been Anglicised as "Fulbe", which is gaining popularity in use. In Portuguese, the terms Fula or Futafula are used. The terms "Fallata", "Fallatah", or "Fellata" are of Kanuri origins, and are often the ethnonyms by which Fulani people are identified by in parts of Chad and Sudan.


title: Fula people

text: The Fula people are widely distributed, across the Sahel from the Atlantic coast to the Red Sea, particularly in West Africa. In addition, many also speak other languages of the countries they inhabit, making many Fulani bilingual or even trilingual. Such languages include French, Hausa, Bambara, Wolof, and Arabic.


title: Fula people

text: Major concentrations of Fulani people exist in the Fouta Djallon highlands of central Guinea and south into the northernmost reaches of Sierra Leone; the Futa Tooro savannah grasslands of Senegal and southern Mauritania; the Macina inland Niger river delta system around Central Mali; and especially in the regions around Mopti and the Nioro Du Sahel in the Kayes region; the Borgu settlements of Benin, Togo, and west-central Nigeria; the northern parts of Burkina Faso in the Sahel region's provinces of Seno, Wadalan, and Soum; and the areas occupied by the Sokoto Caliphate, which includes what is now southern Niger and northern Nigeria (such as Tahoua, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, Zinder, Bauchi, Diffa, Yobe, Gombe, and further east, into the Benue River valley systems of north eastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon).


title: Fula people

text: This is the area known as the "Fombina/Hombina", literally meaning 'the south' in "Adamawa Fulfulde", because it represented the most southern and eastern reaches of Fulɓe hegemonic dominance in West Africa. In this area, Fulfulde is the local lingua franca, and language of cross cultural communication. Further east of this area, Fulani communities become predominantly nomadic, and exist at less organized social systems. These are the areas of the Chari-Baguirmi Region and its river systems, in Chad and the Central African Republic, the Ouaddaï highlands of Eastern Chad, the areas around Kordofan, Darfur and the Blue Nile, Sennar, Kassala regions of Sudan, as well as the Red Sea coastal city of Port Sudan. The Fulani on their way to or back from the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, settled in many parts of eastern Sudan, today representing a distinct community of over two million people referred to as the "Fellata".


title: Fula people

text: While their early settlements in West Africa were in the vicinity of the tri-border point of present-day Mali, Senegal, and Mauritania, they are now, after centuries of gradual migrations and conquests, spread throughout a wide band of West and Central Africa. The Fulani People occupy a vast geographical expanse located roughly in a longitudinal east–west band immediately south of the Sahara, and just north of the coastal rain forest and swamps. There are estimates of 20–25 million Fulani people.


title: Fula people

text: There are generally three different types of Fulani based on settlement patterns, viz: the nomadic-pastoral or "Mbororo", the semi-nomadic, and the settled or "town" Fulani. The pastoral Fulani move around with their cattle throughout the year. Typically, they do not stay around for long stretches (not more than 2–4 months at a time). The semi-nomadic Fulani can either be Fulɓe families who happen to settle down temporarily at particular times of the year or Fulɓe families who do not "browse" around past their immediate surroundings, and even though they possess livestock, they do not wander away from a fixed or settled homestead not too far away, they are basically "in-betweeners".


title: Fula people

text: Settled Fulani live in villages, towns, and cities permanently and have given up nomadic life completely, in favor of an urban one. These processes of settlement, concentration, and military conquest led to the existence of organized and long-established communities of Fulani, varying in size from small villages to towns. Today, some major Fulani towns include: Labé, Pita, Mamou, and Dalaba in Guinea; Kaedi, Matam and Podor in Senegal and Mauritania; Bandiagara, Mopti, Dori, Gorom-Gorom, and Djibo in Mali and Burkina Faso, on the bend of the Niger; and Birnin Kebbi, Gombe, Yola, Digil, Jalingo, Mayo Belwa, Mubi, Maroua, Ngaoundere, Dukku, Girei, and Garoua in the countries of Cameroon and Nigeria. In most of these communities, the Fulani are usually perceived as a ruling class.


title: Fula people

text: Fulani communities are sometimes grouped and named based on the areas they occupy. Although within each region, there are even further divisions and sub-groupings as well. Below is a list of the main Fulɓe groups.


title: Fula people

text: Typically, Fulɓe belonging to the same affinity bloc tend to cluster together in culture, customs, and dialectal variety. Eastern Fulɓe sub-groups tend to be more similar to each other than to other sub-groups, and the same applies to most western groups. Culturally speaking, the central Fulɓe sub-groups are roughly in between the western and eastern Fulani cultural niches.


title: Fula people

text: For example, the Massina Fulɓe share similarities both dialectally and culturally to Nigerian or Cameroonian (Eastern) (both of which end interrogative questions with ""na"?"), as well as Senegalese and Guinean (western) Fulɓe cultures (who do not end interrogative questions with such mannerism). Accordingly, the western groups are the most divergent from the eastern groups and vice versa. Overall, however, all share most cultural practices to a large extent.


title: Fula people

text: In Ghana, the exact number of Fulani is unknown due to systematic oppression that includes not counting the Fulani in the Ghanaian census. This reflects widespread discrimination and negative stereotypes about the Fulani.


title: Fula people

text: The origins of the Fulani people are unclear and various theories have been postulated. Some scholars on Fulani History and Sokoto Caliphate have traced the lineage of the Torankawa clan (Torodbe) of the Fulani to the Arab conqueror Uqba ibn Nafi. As a nomadic herding people, they have moved through and among many other cultures. Skutsch notes that their oral histories point toward a start in Jordan or farther east, but also that their language comes from the Senegambian region. He concludes that the modern Fulani people began in the northern Senegambian region.


title: Fula people

text: Walter Rodney in his book "The History of the Upper Guinea Coast", argues that Fulbe are originally from North Africa and they conquered the Foota Djallon region led by the Fulani Koli Tenguella.


title: Fula people

text: The ethnogenesis of the Fulani people may have begun as a result of interactions between an ancient West African population and North African populations such as Berbers or Egyptians. Their West African roots may be in and around the valley of Senegal River. They likely reflect a genetic intermix of people with West African, North African, and Arabian origins, and have been a part of many ruling dynasties particularly in the Sahel and West Africa. Speculations about their origins started in the era of European conquest and colonization.


title: Fula people

text: The Fulani may have been involved in the formation of a state with its capital at Takrur which is suggested to have had influx of Fulani migrating from the east and settling in the Senegal valley. although John Donnelly Fage suggests that Takrur was formed through the interaction of Berbers from the Sahara and "Negro agricultural peoples" who were "essentially Serer".


title: Fula people

text: Fulani culture continued to emerge in the area of the upper Niger and Senegal Rivers. The Fulani were cattle-keeping farmers who shared their lands with other nearby groups, like the Soninke, who contributed to the rise of ancient Ghana, with eastward and westward expansion being led by nomadic groups of cattle breeders or the Fulɓe ladde. While the initial expansionist groups were small, they soon increased in size due to the availability of grazing lands in the Sahel and the lands that bordered it to the immediate south.