The Sound of Music--Original Broadway Cast Album on (gasp!) LP

The film of this show is so ingrained in my mind that I really wanted to find a different version of The Sound of Music to consider. Since I'm at my parents' home for Father's Day weekend, I've fired up their old turn table and put on the thirty-three-and-a-third cast album. If you don't know what 33-1/3 refers to, I don't want to know you.

Did anyone other than Mary Martin originate two R&H roles? If so, I can't think of them. Maria would have been after Nellie in South Pacific, and it's interesting to think that both characters are rather innocent of the wider world, while being thrust into it. Ms. Martin makes a very different Maria than Julie Andrews--at least as this recording and the photos included in the fold-out album cover convey. Martin is less crystalline, slightly more adult, and does a whole lot of portamento singing that I don't remember Ms. Andrews using in the film.

SOM was the first musical I was ever in, as a 9th-grader. "I'm Friedrich. I'm fourteen. I'm a boy." Yes, I was the von Trapp's oldest son and La in the solfege line-up. What a great first show for a kid to be in. Not only was I rehearsing and performing at the Senior High School, while still being in Junior High School, but the children are front and center most of the time on stage and sing some very fun and challenging music. But you always have your six stage brothers and sisters with you, so you don't have to carry a lot on your individual shoulders.

Several songs from the show's score were left out in the film, and it was nice to hear the funny "How Can Love Survive" and "No Way to Stop It" again--although the later song has the unfortunate association of turning a blind eye to Nazism. I had forgotten the duet "Ordinary Couple", replaced in the film with "Something Good", which is a better and more interesting song, I think.

Oh, Lord, my father is setting up the slide projector for the umpteenth viewing of some trip or family reunion or other. Maybe you can't go home again, but you will see the photos again and again.

Sound of Music
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse
Opened in 1959
Cast: Mary Martin, Patricia Neway, Theordore Bikel, Marion Marlowe, Kurt Kaznar

The Consul--Television production on DVD

Even though it is far from a traditional Broadway musical, I'm including this Gian Carlo Menotti opera in my Year as it had a Broadway-type run of 269 performances in 1950 at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. Plus The Consul is just the type of music I want to think about during my Year. It won a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical (a theater award) and the Pulitzer Prize for Music (a serious music award), so I'm not the only one who can't categorize this work. It is challenging, engaging, thought-provoking and both of its time and timely today.

Being of its time, this work strikes me as a reaction to strict government controls of individuals following WWII and during the rise of Communism. The plot of the opera follows the Sorel family. John is involved in some kind of underground political movement, which is neither defined nor discussed. Being watched by government agents, he goes on the lamb, leaving his wife, new-born son, and mother in dire straights. His wife Magda makes multiple attempts to see the Consul (of an unnamed country) to find out what has happened to her husband, and to get some help for herself and her son. The bureaucracy does her in at every turn.

Being timely today, this work also speaks on issues like immigration, or war crimes prisons, or any government perspective which deals only with rules and documents rather than with people.

This is challenging music to listen to, and in fact I watched this DVD over the course of three days rather than straight-through. There a parts of the score, however that are beautiful (particularly the lullaby that the grandmother sings to the infant son) or powerful (the break-down Madga has during her second visit to the Consul's office). Much of the score falls harshly on my ears, though, which is probably the point of the score.

One thing I never tired of watching, however, was Patricia Neway's performance as Magda. She is a riveting singing actress who uses her entire face and body to convey the pathos of her character's situation. If I'm reading the on-line history I've found correctly, Ms. Neway originated the role in 1950 and was part of the Broadway production. This television production was taped in 1960; she is perhaps too old for the part (particularly in a close-up format), but clearly has a strong handle on performing the part.

I see from Ms. Neway's credits that she was Nettie Fowler in a television version of Carousel, originated the role (for which she won a Tony) of the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music, and was in a television production of Poulenc's opera Dialogue of the Carmelites, and was in a Broadway production of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia that also featured Kitty Carlisle Hart! What an interesting career Ms. Neway had!

The Consul
Music and libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti

Premiered in 1950
Television production in 1960
Cast: Patricia Neway, Chester Ludgin, Evelyn Sachs, Regina Sarfaty