Green Finch & Linnet Bird -Sweeney Todd

Because I can't seem to escape Sondheim for too long, here is a little Sweeney Todd today. I have this theory that Sondheim hates sopranos, because he tends to give them rather annoying songs, but more often than not, make them relatively useless one dimensional characters in his shows. For instance, Johanna in Sweeney Todd and Rapunzel from Into the Woods. They sing some pretty high notes but usually serve no other purpose than to drive the plot forward for others as they are confined maidens who usually need to be rescued. In this song Johanna, another soprano damsel in distress is longing for life outside Judge Turpin's house, the creeper who raised her. She questions how caged birds still sing even when they are not free, and longs for a way to be happy despite her circumstances. I invite you all to warm up those soprano pipes then, and try to sing some "oomph" into this typically waifish character! Keep in mind that the version I have posted is the full version of the song, not the abbreviated one from Tim Burton's 2007 movie starring Johnny Depp.
Here are the lyrics:

Green finch and linnet bird, nightingale, blackbird
How is it you sing?
How can you jubilate, sitting in cages
Never taking wing?

Outside, the sky waits, beckoning, beckoning
Just beyond the bars
How can you remain , staring at the rain
Maddened by the stars?

How is it you sing anything?
How is it you sing?

Green finch and linnet bird, nightingale, blackbird
How is it you sing?

Whence comes this melody, constantly flowing?
Is it rejoicing or merely hallowing?
Are you discussing or fussing
Or simply dreaming?

Are you crowing? Are you screaming?

Ringdove and robinet, is it for wages?
Singing to be sold?
Have you decided, it's safer in cages
Singing when you're told?

My cage has many rooms, damask and dark
Nothing there sings, not even a lark
Larks never will, you know, when they're captive
Teach me to be more adaptive, ah

Green finch, and linnet bird, nightingale, blackbird
Teach me how to sing
If I cannot fly
Let me sing

Here is Kristin Chenoweth to show us how it's done! I think she nails it: