Sound of Music

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Sound of Music

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1suitable1
jun 22, 2011, 5:43 pm

I first saw "The Sound of Music" when I was in the US Army and stationed in Japan in 1965. The theater was in Sapporo and the movie had Japanese subtitles. Yes, Julie Andrews was probably too old for the part, but I thought it was great. It remains one of my favorites.

2LShelby
jun 29, 2011, 2:06 pm

I don't remember when I first saw The Sound of Music, but it can't have been 1965, because I wasn't born yet then.

I remember being in The Sound of Music. People kept asking who was "playing Julie Andrews" which drove our director batty. "Nobody is 'playing' Julie Andrews!" he would thunder. "Julie Andrews is not a character in this show!" :)

3AntiLeah
jun 29, 2011, 3:47 pm

They used to play the Sound of Music every year on TV around Christmas time, I believe, back in the late 70s/early 80s when I was a wee one. I'm pretty sure that was when I first saw it. We eventually got one of those newfangled VCRs and taped it off of TV so we could watch it whenever we wanted. It wasn't until years and years later that my sisters and I realized that the version we had always watched had been shortened for the TV broadcast and there were entire parts we had never seen! Those parts still sound weird to me when I see the full movie today.

We had the soundtrack as well and would play Sound of Music with the music going full blast. My older sister got to play Maria and Liesl, my younger sister got to be Gretl, and I played everyone else.

4adrykitty
dec 3, 2013, 3:54 pm

Reviving this because of what is happening now with Carrie Underwood. I don't like it at all. Watching the behind the scenes video has just made me more averse to it.... I daresay they're butchering the original musical with pre-recorded singing and ... well I think the movie just made it too hard to replicate. It's like Lady Gaga trying to play Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Garland and Andrews have just popularized secured the roles TOO well!

(PS: I'd love to see this whole group "revived" as well!)

5suitable1
dec 3, 2013, 6:22 pm

They are doing the original musical (mostly), not the movie. The musical has had revivals both professional and amateur.

6adrykitty
dec 6, 2013, 9:46 pm

I nonetheless strongly feel that Carrie was cast as Maria only to promote the show to non-thespians, because her acting and belty singing are just..... completely rebirthing, if not butchering, the role

7cpg
dec 7, 2013, 12:26 pm

I quite enjoyed the Dec 5 production, and I'll be buying myself a copy of the DVD when it comes out in a couple of weeks. I think much of the criticism of Underwood misses the mark. Some talk as if it's obvious that the Queen's English is far superior to Oklahoman English in representing the voice of an orphan from the hills of western Austria; it's not obvious to me! Some negative comparisons of Underwood's performance to Andrews' performance (a performance which I adore) also seem to neglect the intrinsic differences between a motion picture production (which permits close-up shots, genuine sotto voce utterances, and the ability to redo a scene umpteen times, and which obviates the need to focus on remembering 3 hours of lines) and a live stage production. Underwood's Maria was demure, while Andrews' Maria was feisty, but I don't think it's because Underwood can't do feisty; her performances on the country music stage seem to suggest that she can.

I'm not interested in arguing that Underwood's performance wasn't technically deficient; I'm sure it was. But from the beginning of the broadcast Underwood came across so sympathetically to me that I lost all interest in focusing on the deficiencies. In it's own way, I found this production to be very powerful. It looked like Underwood was really crying when McDonald sang "Climb Every Mountain" (but I'm not sure, because my own vision was a little clouded at the time).

Kudos to Underwood and to NBC for doing this production. I'm a better person (and maybe the world is even a slightly better place) because they did.

8ncgraham
dec 26, 2013, 10:43 pm

I liked Underwood's singing a great deal; her acting was spotty. She was best in moments when she was called upon to be really passionate, like when she told the Captain what's what, or in the "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" scene, as cpg mentioned. She also had good chemistry with the children. Other than that, she was obviously a pure singer surrounded by actors and singing-actors.

Max and Elsa were wonderful, and vocally the nuns stole the show (especially the glorious Audra McDonald as the Mother Superior). And Rolf was super cute. The end.

9LShelby
dec 26, 2013, 10:49 pm

>8 ncgraham: Oh, well, if Rolf is super cute, then this is a must have for my musical loving family, with four girls between the ages of 12 and 21. :D

10MDGentleReader
mrt 14, 2014, 3:03 pm

Audra McDonald is the Mother Superior? Wow.

11suitable1
mrt 14, 2014, 6:56 pm

Surely no expects a musical to be realistic. I mean, just how often do folks just burst out in song when they are in the middle of a conversation.

12LShelby
mrt 14, 2014, 10:20 pm

>11 suitable1:
Happens all the time around my house.