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                On November 29, 2015, my mother, two of my friends and I went to a matinee at the Blumenthal Theater for a touring production of “The Sound of Music”. I really enjoy the movie, even though I hadn’t seen it in a while, but I think I like the stage musical better. There were slight, minute changes from the movie, for example, there were certain songs that were in different places. A main example is that Maria doesn’t sing “My Favorite Things” during the thunderstorm to the children; instead, she sings “The Lonely Goatherd”. Also, “Do-Re-Mi” takes place immediately after Maria meets the children.

            The production was entertaining and the acting was phenomenal. I even heard that the man who played Rolf in the movie came to the performance after the one I went to! Speaking of famous actors, the original Mary Poppins on Broadway (Laura Michelle Kelly was West End.) was playing the part of Mother Abbess; she also played Mary when I saw the national tour a couple of years ago! There was an understudy, Lucas Schultz, playing Friedrich, who sings the high note during “So Long, Farewell” in this version of “The Sound of Music”, in whom I think I saw when I saw Pippin over the summer. The lady playing Maria had a certain charm that Julie Andrews didn’t have. I am not entirely sure what type of ensemble a Broadway musical is, but I know that stage productions include an ensemble, which refers to the actors who play multiple roles and those who aren’t the leads, and without that ensemble, the show wouldn’t go on.

    The instruments that I primarily heard were mostly woodwinds, vocals, and brass. I noticed a lot of flute and clarinet. I peered into the orchestra pit and I saw a large bassoon during intermission. Violin was dominant during the party scene when Von Trapp and Maria danced the Ländler and in other pieces reminiscent of Vienna waltzes. Since this was a musical, vocals are a prominent part to the storytelling. I’m still amazed by the range of the actor who played Captain Von Trapp, especially during the reprise of “So Long, Farewell”; he ends the song off on a high note, literally!

    Now, to talk the musical numbers themselves. They are just as memorable as they were in the movie, but I’m not comparing it to the movie. I have already talked about the miniscule details regarding song placement. There were two songs that weren’t in the movie that were sung by Frau Schrader and Uncle Max, “How Can Love Survive?” and “No Way to Stop It”, but were in the stage show. I liked those two, but it felt as if those songs had no place in the story. My favorite songs were “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”, the song that played just before the end credits of the move, (I didn’t really pay attention to the song in the movie because I was too mesmerized by the exchange of dialogue right before with the nuns and realizing how much they were rudimentary hardcore. Also, there were people being disruptive, and that’s no fun.), “Edelweiss”, “My Favorite Things” because of the different context (Maria and Mother Abbess share a beautiful moment together reminiscing about their past in the mountains) and the fact that it has always been one of my favorite songs from the show, “How Can Love Survive”, “Do-Re-Mi” and “Something Good”, the duet written for the movie between Von Trapp and Maria.

    The entirety of musical score was written by the duo of composer and lyricist, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein III. They have also written many other Broadway musicals, like “Oklahoma!”, their first collaboration on a musical, “South Pacific”, “Carousel”, “The King and I”, and “Cinderella”, which was originally broadcast on television in 1957 , but it traversed its way onto Broadway in 2013. In actuality, most of the music was written by Rodgers, if you include the song from the movie, because Hammerstein died in 1960 before the movie adaptation started the filming.

            “The Sound of Music” is in a dear place in my heart because it was one of the first musicals that I’ve ever seen. That, “The Wizard of Oz” and some Disney movies were my first experiences to the wonderful world of music. I even remember a moment in the sixth grade when the entire school had to go to this chorus performance for an assembly and the middle school and high school chorus did repertoire from this show; they did “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”, “Do-Re-Mi,”, if I remember correctly, and “So Long, Farewell.” I find it funny a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical first introduced the concept of showing a Broadway show on live television, and “The Sound of Music”, another Rodgers and Hammerstein production, was the first to revive it, if you don’t count the 10th and 25th anniversaries of Les Miserables at Royal Albert Hall. In conclusion, I was glad to view a piece of my childhood on one of the things that I uphold to this day as a favorite thing.

Description

                On November 29, 2015, my mother, two of my friends and I went to a matinee at the Blumenthal Theater for a touring production of “The Sound of Music”. I really enjoy the movie, even though I hadn’t seen it in a while, but I think I like the stage musical better. There were slight, minute changes from the movie, for example, there were certain songs that were in different places. A main example is that Maria doesn’t sing “My Favorite Things” during the thunderstorm to the children; instead, she sings “The Lonely Goatherd”. Also, “Do-Re-Mi” takes place immediately after Maria meets the children.

            The production was entertaining and the acting was phenomenal. I even heard that the man who played Rolf in the movie came to the performance after the one I went to! Speaking of famous actors, the original Mary Poppins on Broadway (Laura Michelle Kelly was West End.) was playing the part of Mother Abbess; she also played Mary when I saw the national tour a couple of years ago! There was an understudy, Lucas Schultz, playing Friedrich, who sings the high note during “So Long, Farewell” in this version of “The Sound of Music”, in whom I think I saw when I saw Pippin over the summer. The lady playing Maria had a certain charm that Julie Andrews didn’t have. I am not entirely sure what type of ensemble a Broadway musical is, but I know that stage productions include an ensemble, which refers to the actors who play multiple roles and those who aren’t the leads, and without that ensemble, the show wouldn’t go on.

    The instruments that I primarily heard were mostly woodwinds, vocals, and brass. I noticed a lot of flute and clarinet. I peered into the orchestra pit and I saw a large bassoon during intermission. Violin was dominant during the party scene when Von Trapp and Maria danced the Ländler and in other pieces reminiscent of Vienna waltzes. Since this was a musical, vocals are a prominent part to the storytelling. I’m still amazed by the range of the actor who played Captain Von Trapp, especially during the reprise of “So Long, Farewell”; he ends the song off on a high note, literally!

    Now, to talk the musical numbers themselves. They are just as memorable as they were in the movie, but I’m not comparing it to the movie. I have already talked about the miniscule details regarding song placement. There were two songs that weren’t in the movie that were sung by Frau Schrader and Uncle Max, “How Can Love Survive?” and “No Way to Stop It”, but were in the stage show. I liked those two, but it felt as if those songs had no place in the story. My favorite songs were “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”, the song that played just before the end credits of the move, (I didn’t really pay attention to the song in the movie because I was too mesmerized by the exchange of dialogue right before with the nuns and realizing how much they were rudimentary hardcore. Also, there were people being disruptive, and that’s no fun.), “Edelweiss”, “My Favorite Things” because of the different context (Maria and Mother Abbess share a beautiful moment together reminiscing about their past in the mountains) and the fact that it has always been one of my favorite songs from the show, “How Can Love Survive”, “Do-Re-Mi” and “Something Good”, the duet written for the movie between Von Trapp and Maria.

    The entirety of musical score was written by the duo of composer and lyricist, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein III. They have also written many other Broadway musicals, like “Oklahoma!”, their first collaboration on a musical, “South Pacific”, “Carousel”, “The King and I”, and “Cinderella”, which was originally broadcast on television in 1957 , but it traversed its way onto Broadway in 2013. In actuality, most of the music was written by Rodgers, if you include the song from the movie, because Hammerstein died in 1960 before the movie adaptation started the filming.

            “The Sound of Music” is in a dear place in my heart because it was one of the first musicals that I’ve ever seen. That, “The Wizard of Oz” and some Disney movies were my first experiences to the wonderful world of music. I even remember a moment in the sixth grade when the entire school had to go to this chorus performance for an assembly and the middle school and high school chorus did repertoire from this show; they did “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”, “Do-Re-Mi,”, if I remember correctly, and “So Long, Farewell.” I find it funny a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical first introduced the concept of showing a Broadway show on live television, and “The Sound of Music”, another Rodgers and Hammerstein production, was the first to revive it, if you don’t count the 10th and 25th anniversaries of Les Miserables at Royal Albert Hall. In conclusion, I was glad to view a piece of my childhood on one of the things that I uphold to this day as a favorite thing.