Sweeney Todd dogs alerting neighbors and the gendarmes. The two confess, and are summarily burned alive; the houses where the crimes took place are then razed. Whether this version of the story is based on "The String of Pearls" or its dramatisation, or a much older tale alluded to by Féval is unclear. In any case, it may well be the source for some recent versions that move the tale from London to Paris. In 1875, Frederick Hazleton's c. 1865 dramatic adaptation "Sweeney Todd, the Barber of Fleet Street: or the String of Pearls" (see below) was published as Vol 102 of
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 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." The citizens of London, who act as a Greek chorus throughout the play, drop a body bag into a shallow grave. Sweeney Todd rises forth ("The Ballad of Sweeney Todd"), and introduces the drama. In 1846, young sailor Anthony