The Sound of Music
Feb. 13th, 2016 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustThe Sound of Music is the sound of my childhood. I cannot count the number of times we watched our VHS copy taped off the TV, or listened to the vinyl record of the soundtrack. Every song is embedded in my memory, like for so many other people. And Julie Andrews is the perfect Maria.
So how could a production of the stage musical hope to live up to these kinds of expectations?
* I knew going in that the movie would cast a long shadow, so I kept my expectations modest. It was a good production! The cast were great singers! (Amy Lehpamer as Maria, Cameron Daddo as Captain von Trapp, and a talented group of kids.) But even though the musical came first, it's the movie I kept comparing it to. And the movie, being a later adaptation, had the chance to improve on its source.
* "The Sound of Music" is an opening number that's a showstopper. But singing "the hills are alive" while running around a theatre stage can't compare to the sweeping pananorama of the mountains of Austria.
* The songs that had the most emotional impact on me were the serious ones: "Maria", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Something Good", and "Edelweiss".
* I was a little weirded out that "My Favourite Things" and "The Lonely Goatherd" were moved around. I guess they had to change the context, because they couldn't replicate that incredible puppet show on stage. But it was disorienting, like listening to a favourite album on shuffle.
* "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" has not aged well for me.
* Though it's good the musical gives the Baroness and Max the chance to sing, I can see why the movie cut the songs "How Can Love Survive" and "No Way to Stop It" - they feel more cynical than the optimistic tone of the rest of the songs.
* The musical is kinder to the Baroness than the movie. Here, she likes the children and the children like her. (Although they LOVE Maria.) I'm not sure I like that her split with the Captain is from political differences - for me, it hits more emotional buttons if it's because of the love story.
* The musical also redeems Rolf - he gives the Captain a veiled warning to comply with Nazi orders or get out of the country ASAP, and he tells his superiors he's found no one in the abbey garden where the von Trapps were hiding. It was also cool that Liesl stood between an armed Rolf and her family, protecting them.
* When the Captain sang "Edelweiss" at the concert, I remembered that in the movie, this was when the audience joined in, in defiance of the Nazis. I wondered if we were meant to participate, and I was on tenterhooks waiting for some kind of cue. I didn't want to randomly start singing by myself. But nothing happened! It would have been kind of awesome.
* The pacing felt a bit rushed, like the plot was compressed for time and there wasn't room to let emotions breathe. This didn't bother me too much, because it was fleshed out in my memory, and I was here for the songs, so I was happy to leap from one to the next.
So how could a production of the stage musical hope to live up to these kinds of expectations?
* I knew going in that the movie would cast a long shadow, so I kept my expectations modest. It was a good production! The cast were great singers! (Amy Lehpamer as Maria, Cameron Daddo as Captain von Trapp, and a talented group of kids.) But even though the musical came first, it's the movie I kept comparing it to. And the movie, being a later adaptation, had the chance to improve on its source.
* "The Sound of Music" is an opening number that's a showstopper. But singing "the hills are alive" while running around a theatre stage can't compare to the sweeping pananorama of the mountains of Austria.
* The songs that had the most emotional impact on me were the serious ones: "Maria", "Climb Ev'ry Mountain", "Something Good", and "Edelweiss".
* I was a little weirded out that "My Favourite Things" and "The Lonely Goatherd" were moved around. I guess they had to change the context, because they couldn't replicate that incredible puppet show on stage. But it was disorienting, like listening to a favourite album on shuffle.
* "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" has not aged well for me.
* Though it's good the musical gives the Baroness and Max the chance to sing, I can see why the movie cut the songs "How Can Love Survive" and "No Way to Stop It" - they feel more cynical than the optimistic tone of the rest of the songs.
* The musical is kinder to the Baroness than the movie. Here, she likes the children and the children like her. (Although they LOVE Maria.) I'm not sure I like that her split with the Captain is from political differences - for me, it hits more emotional buttons if it's because of the love story.
* The musical also redeems Rolf - he gives the Captain a veiled warning to comply with Nazi orders or get out of the country ASAP, and he tells his superiors he's found no one in the abbey garden where the von Trapps were hiding. It was also cool that Liesl stood between an armed Rolf and her family, protecting them.
* When the Captain sang "Edelweiss" at the concert, I remembered that in the movie, this was when the audience joined in, in defiance of the Nazis. I wondered if we were meant to participate, and I was on tenterhooks waiting for some kind of cue. I didn't want to randomly start singing by myself. But nothing happened! It would have been kind of awesome.
* The pacing felt a bit rushed, like the plot was compressed for time and there wasn't room to let emotions breathe. This didn't bother me too much, because it was fleshed out in my memory, and I was here for the songs, so I was happy to leap from one to the next.
