The Sound of Music Live

To compare the ITV British SOUND OF MUSIC LIVE! production to the beloved (but still flawed) 1965 film is utter nonsense. It's like comparing apples and oranges, because they are two different media. Resources were available for the film that the stage production couldn't hope to utilize. More to the point, how does it compare to the NBC-TV 2013 Live production that starred Carrie Underwood?

The answer is that it's miles better! The production is excellent, and while I disagree with a few things (such as replacing "An Ordinary Couple" with "Something Good" and abridging a couple of the songs; hence the two stars off a ten-star rating), watching it was generally time very well spent. The cast was youthful and appealing, and - more to the point - everyone could actually act! The sugary sweetness of the show was, by-and-large, swept away.

The music was well-paced, and although I missed the original orchestrations, the ones used did no harm and didn't sound out of place. I have to admit that I hated the American version when it aired. Most fatally, Carrie Underwood, simply couldn't act, and the scenes dragged. No such problem here. I missed this when it was first broadcast by PBS in 2018, so I'm very happy that I happened to catch it last night.

An enthusiastic thumbs-up!.

In his "absolutely fabulous" ten-star review, David Kravitz said that "never once" did he yearn for Julie Andrews or Christopher Plummer. I didn't yearn for them once either; I yearned for them (especially Andrews) from beginning to end. Not that this was a bad production— far from it—but it paled before the 1965 film. By coincidence, I had watched the DVD of the film just a few days before seeing the new BBC production, so I had a dramatic contrast of the two productions. Much of the superiority of the film was due to it being a film and being 30 minutes longer. One can't justifiably downgrade the stage play for lacking the magnificent Austrian scenery or the expensive 20th Century Fox sets (e.g., the beautiful ball room), or the wonderful photography, from the jaw-dropping opening sequence to the romantic "Something Good" number and the Vermeer-like quality in "Climb Every Mountain." And in fact this stage production was better than the one I saw years ago in L.A. starring Florence Henderson. But although one can't blame the BBC production for lacking what only a film can provide, those and other factors make the film a much better audience experience than the stage show—better writing, improved sequence of songs, more dramatic scenes and sufficient length to bring the audience into greater identification with the characters, e.g., the romance between Maria and the Captain made more sense in the film than in the stage play, where it sort of came out of the blue, and the "I Have Confidence" number (new for the film) provided much deeper appreciation of Maria's character. Likewise, with the omissions in the film, e.g., the relatively mediocre songs that were cut, the better timing for the first singing of "My Favorite Things" rather than the ludicrous song-and-dance duet with Maria and the Mother Abbess. What made the film so superior was the acting, and this despite the excessive cutesiness of Plummer and the film children. Julie Andrews brought real depth to Maria, whereas Kara Tointon's Maria was relatively workman-like and lacking much emotion (and lacking anything but a run-of-the-mill voice). Julian Ovenden certainly has a better voice than Plummer but lacked the stature of Plummer and came across as rather boring. Likewise, Eleanor Parker and Richard Hayden, because of both a better script and their own acting, made those characters much more than the perfunctory throw-ins in the BBC production. If the BBC production had been my introduction to "The Sound of Music," I'm sure I would have become a fan of the show. But the film was (and still is) transporting.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC - LIVE! is a comparative rarity on television these days - a revival recorded in an East London studio but broadcast as live, as if performed in a theater. It recalled those halcyon days in the Seventies and Eighties when both ITV and the BBC videotaped productions originally designed for the West End, Stratford-on-Avon and the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Coky Giedroyc and Richard Valentine's production was a straightforward one, emphasizing the choreography but using the camera to tell the story, as if it were an actor on the stage. Hence this was not a "flat" filming, with the camera confined by the proscenium, but a three-dimensional filming, making use of plenty of close-ups and panning shots. It used televisual techniques to emphasize the emotion of the piece on several occasions.

Although well-known to most viewers, both in its stage and film versions, THE SOUND OF MUSIC still has the capacity to stir the emotions. This is chiefly due to a strong book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, which does not shy away from the sinister political overtones of the story. The songs might be saccharine in places, but the plot certainly isn't.

Giedroyc and Valentine's production brought out the gradual change of character wrought in Captain Georg von Trapp (Julian Ovenden), as he discovered the effect that Maria had on his children. His pliability contrasted with Maria (Kara Tointon), a strong-willed personality who knew that what she was doing was right, even if Von Trapp disagreed with it. Set against this couple was the oleaginous Max (Alexander Armstrong) a slimy character if ever there was one, who willingly accepted the dictates of Nazism without understanding their basically evil purposes.

The singing was, on the whole, extremely good, while the orchestrations (by Michael England) were both lush yet melodic. Critics described THE SOUND OF MUSIC - LIVE! as an example of "event" television, designed to lure jaded viewers away from online service providers and back to terrestrial channels. If this was the purpose, then I can only say that it was admirably fulfilled. I sincerely hope that ITV repeats the experiment.

This production went out live on a giant stage in London. It was not simply great, it was magnificent. Incredible production values and a wonderful cast. It follows the original stage show (almost) which means that the two deleted numbers from the film version are restored but "something good" written for the film is added. The original sequence of songs and orchestrations are there as well.

I will not single out any of the cast as this would be unfair, they all perform to perfection and never once do you yearn for Julie Andrews or Christopher Plummer. There are no silly English accents with a German/Austrian twang.

The kids are good too, again I single out no one.

I think that an audience might have helped but this would not be possible, technically given the size of the sets. And if you want to see how it was done, there is a documentary "The making of ....".

I presume that this will be available on DVD if you didn't record it live. Go out and buy it - and play it over and over again. Well done ITV.

I enjoyed the solid British style of this production and although I can see why Christopher Plummer's military bearing might not be matched in this version, it isn't a fair comparison to me. I found the sets and the singing, albeit not so polished as on film, far more immediately engaging and the 'live' feel came across really well. A great treat, found by chance on the itv hub from its broadcast in the final days of last year (2017) - a Sunday night jewel.