Opera North, one of the country's best-known opera companies, is to have a break from opera and tackle a musical; Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd - the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Sondheim's musical tells the story of the legendary barber who cut his customers' throats and then passed their bodies to a neighboring establishment where they were turned into meat pies.

It is not unknown for opera companies to perform musicals, but they are usually classical ones like Oklahoma!. The line between light operas and musicals is an increasingly blurred one: English National Opera's hugely successful production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado, directed by Jonathan Miller, is advertised as "the best musical in London" for example.

Opera North's Sweeney Todd will begin its tour in Leeds in April 2002 and arrive in Sadler's Wells on June 7. More details to be announced nearer the time.

—by Theatrenow