Broadway Again Alive With ‘Sound Of Music’
On Broadway, the tills are alive with the sound of money.
Although it hadn’t even opened yet, “The Sound of Music” was proving its drawing power at the box office. The production, which features Rebecca Luker as Maria and Michael Siberry as Baron von Trapp, had sold more than $3 million worth of tickets in advance of its Thursday opening.
A perennial family favorite and the last show Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote together, “The Sound of Music” is one of the most successful stage properties of all time.
It opened in 1959 to mixed reviews but ran four years. “The show has talked up for itself,” Rodgers remarked on its first anniversary. “And I’m very proud of it.”
Back then, Rodgers and Hammerstein produced the musical themselves for $500,000. Hallmark, of greeting card fame, is producing the revival for $6 million. That’s a high cost for a revival but probably worth it for “The Sound of Music,” which, at 40, seems more popular than ever.
More than 600 stock and amateur productions are licensed annually, according to the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, which controls the rights to the show. The company estimates more than 600,000 people see “The Sound of Music” on stage every year.
The beloved 1965 movie starring Julie Andrews has grossed $944 million. The home video, released in 1979, spent 300 weeks on the sales charts, a record.
What accounts for “The Sound of Music’s” enduring popularity?
“It combines all the themes that Rodgers and Hammerstein loved and knew how to deal with,” says Ted Chapin, president of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization. “It’s about family values, certainly, but it also deals with young kids discovering their sexuality, how opposites - Maria and the Baron - attract each other, and the very real threat of Nazi Germany that unifies all the characters.”
And then there is the score, which is chock full of such standards as “Do-Re-Mi,” “My Favorite Things” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”
‘It is not a score that music critics and theater historians go out on a limb for, but it is just about the most tuneful score there ever was,” says Ethan Mordan, author of “Rodgers & Hammerstein,” a critical study of the team’s shows.
In the past few years, Broadway directors have reinterpreted classic R&H shows like “Carousel” and “The King and I” by emphasizing their darker themes. The new production of “The Sound of Music,” however, is pretty benign.
While there are a few more swastikas than there were in the original, the show keeps its focus on singing kids and mountaineering nuns.
“I’ve heard of productions that start with a parade of Nazis, but that never works,” says Chapin. “This show just isn’t as daring as ‘Carousel’ can be. The best thing to do with it is play it straight.”
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