Silver-white Winters that Melt into Spring...

So I had an adventure last night with Wini. We went to see "The Sound of Music" performed at the Volksoper. But I have to tell you about the adventure I had just getting there, then we'll move onto the actual performance.

On Sunday, we said we wanted to go see the SoM performed, but it wasn't playing that night, so we put it off until Monday. So I did my normal Monday things -- laundry, baking, cleaning, grocery shopping, just in general practicing my domestic skills -- and pretty much got pumped to go see the show. Well, I talked to Wini in the afternoon, just to reconfirm that we were going, and we were still on, so when 5:45 rolled around, I jauntily stepped out of the apartment building and sauntered down to the Strassenbahn stop. From there it was only about a fifteen minute ride to the Volkstheater. We had agreed to meet in front of the building and buy our tickets together.

It was getting a little late and I couldn't get ahold of Wini, so I gave Mandy a call. She couldn't actually make it to the performance because she had to work in the library and there wasn't anybody to cover for her. She said the Volkstheater was right. But all I saw were signs for "Liebelei," an Austrian production that I'm going to see with my drama class on Wednesday night. And I had one of those feelings, you know?

Then I got a call from Mandy -- she double-checked the schedule of things going on that's posted near the IES library, and saw that "The Sound of Music" wasn't playing at the Volkstheater, it was playing at the Volksoper. And then I didn't know where the address was that she gave me. Luckily, I thought I remembered seeing it on Saturday night while I was on the U6 when I went out to dinner with a bunch of people. And since there was a very convenient U-Bahn station nearby, I checked their map and sure enough, the Volksoper was a stop on the U6. From there it was just a matter of calling Wini to let her know I'd be there as soon as possible, then hopping on the 48A and changing lines to the U6. Just as a sidenote: I love Viennese public transit. It's so incredibly reliable.

Once I got to the Volksoper, I met Wini and we got online to buy our tickets. The girl in front of us was from IES and we saw that she had her ID out, so we got ours out too. Originally, we had planned on buying Stehplatz, which were only 1.50 Euro, but we could get seventh row seats for only 8 Euro with our student card. Can you guess what we decided to do? Yup, went with the seats. And I think it ranks up there with the best reasons to spend a little bit more.

The seats we got were big and comfortable and covered in red velvet. We had to check our coats, but we could put them together, so it was only half as expensive. About two minutes after we got to out seats, the show started. And I was super impressed from the start.

The scenery was really cool. They had part of the stage that could move up, down, forward, and backward depending on where they wanted it. Then there were mountain cutouts that they were raise and lower. And they had a nifty crinkle curtain that they lit from the side or the back.

The performances were really good too. It was a little weird not to see Julie Andrews as Maria, but all of the actors and actresses were strong singers and possessed good acting skills. I think the best were the children because they had some very young kids cast in the roles of Marta and Gretl. And they could all sing -- it was absolutely fabulous. And of course, it was all in German. They had "overtitles," but I tried not to pay attention to them because they were more like summaries of what was being said, than what was actually said. The costume changes were also pretty impressive. I mean, they might have had thirty seconds to do a full costume change, and the woman that played Maria probably had at least five complete changes.

The songs were out of order compared to the movie, and some things were glossed over, but I guess you have to do that in theater. The general story line was the same, but certain details were altered, and there was a much more political feeling to it, especially in the second act that I think was downplayed a lot in the movie.

In the play, the Captain and the Baroness decide to not get married not because he's in love with Maria, which I think was part of it, but because they have completely different political views. She is of the mindset to lay low and go along with the Anschluss whereas he was very much against it. There was even a song or two about it. The butler in the play was also very pro-Nazi, which you didn't see in the movie. I think it might have been hinted at a little bit, but it's been a very long time since I've seen it, so I can't be sure.

The Reverend Mother also plays a much larger role in the play than she does in the movie. It may be because she was played by a younger woman that it seemed she was less serene and had more energy. But she also sang the "Favorite Things" song with Maria at one point.

At the end of the play, when they are hiding in the Abbey, Franz doesn't actually blow the whistle on the von Trapp family, so they get away, but you don't get to see the car scene.

I think one of my favorite parts of the play was when the von Trapps were at the festival singing because the audience in the theater was the audience at the festival if that makes sense. They had actors dressed as Nazis come out into the audience and station themselves in the walkways and by the doors. Then, once the von Trapp family had gone missing, the actors ran through the audience and there were whistles blowing and they had search lights going too. It was all very dramatic, and it made me wonder how many people in that audience might remember stuff like that happening.

The encore at the end was the "Edelweiß" song. The entire cast was on the stage to sing it, and on the "overtitles" they put up the German words so everybody could sing along, like they did in the movie at the festival. It was seriously cool.

And it turns out that this was Wini's first time seeing the end of "The Sound of Music" because she always stopped before they got to the festival. I absolutely LOVED this production. And I think it might have been even cooler because I had been to some of those places -- like the gazebo and the nunnery. So now I pretty much can't wait to watch the movie again because I want to be able to say, "I was there" at all the appropriate moments. I think one of the girls here has it, and we'll do a movie night soon!

Some information on the Broadway production:

The Sound of Music is a Broadway musical based on the book The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp. The famous soundtrack includes the songs "Edelweiss", "My Favorite Things", "Climb Every Mountain", "Do-Re-Mi", and "Sixteen Going On Seventeen".

The music was written by Richard Rodgers and the lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. The script was written by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It would prove to be the final musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein; the latter would die of cancer nine months after the premiere.

After screening a German film about the von Trapp family, stage director Vincent J. Donehue began shopping the project around before it was picked up by Broadway producers Leland Hayward and Richard Halliday (husband of star Mary Martin). It was originally envisioned as a non-musical play to be written by Lindsay and Crouse with authentic Austrian music. Then it was decided to add an original song or two, perhaps by Rodgers and Hammerstein. However, it was soon agreed that the project should feature all new songs and be a musical rather than a play.

Trivia from the Musical:

• Many people believe "Edelweiss" to be a traditional Austrian song, or even a national hymn. In fact the song was written for the musical and is little known in Austria.[2]
• The Edelweiss is the unofficial national flower of Switzerland and popular in Austria. In the Republic of Austria, it appeared on the 1 Schilling coin and can now be seen on the 2 cent Euro coin. The edelweiss is also worn as a cap device by certain Austrian Army mountain units.
• The musical itself is virtually unknown in Austria, except in backpacker's hostels in Salzburg, where the film is screened daily on DVD.[3]
• Maria von Trapp's book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, was made into two successful German films before it was adapted as The Sound of Music. Maria sold the rights for less than $10,000, so the von Trapp family did not benefit greatly from its success.
• The Ländler dance as performed by Maria and the Captain during the party is only loosely based on the traditional Austrian dance of the same name.[4]
• The song lists of the stage play and film are slightly different, thanks to the screenwriting of Ernest Lehman. In the musical, "My Favorite Things" is sung at the convent, whereas in the movie it is sung to the children in the von Trapp house. "No Way to Stop it" was dropped for the film, and "How Can Love Survive?" (deemed to not fit the flow of the movie) was reduced to being only one of the several waltz numbers played at the party. The title song's four-line prelude ("My day in the hills has come to an end, I know..."), sung by Mary Martin in the stage play, is also reduced to an instrumental hint during the overture and dramatic opening shot of Julie Andrews.
• On an episode of Seinfeld, George and Jerry decide to use a song as a signal to let each other know when George's girlfriend is coming while they replace an answering-machine tape containing numerous insulting messages. George requests "Maria" and then proceeds to sing it, much to Jerry's chagrin.
• The Guinness Book of World Records once had an entry for "worst film editing", noting that when a Hong Kong exhibitor felt that the movie was overly long, he remedied the situation by cutting out all the musical numbers.
• During the Cold War, in the event of a nuclear strike on the United Kingdom, the BBC planned to broadcast The Sound of Music on radio as part of an emergency timetable of programmes designed to "reassure" the public in the aftermath of the attack. A television broadcast would not have been planned or possible, though, as televisions would be rendered inoperable by the Electromagnetic pulse effect. [5]
• Gwen Stefani's 2006 single "Wind It Up", from her second solo album The Sweet Escape, samples "The Lonely Goatherd."
• On The OC, the Cooper family watch The Sound Of Music every year on Kaitlins birthday. Melinda Clarke, a colotura soprano, can be heard singing "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" in episode 313, The Pot Stirrer.
• "So Long, Farewell" was used in early 2007 in TV ads for Kia Motors, with orchestration similar to the play's version, as a team of car dealers sang to the many sold cars that were leaving their lot.

Dubbing information from the movie:

Several key members of the cast had their singing voices dubbed by others. Peggy Wood, who played Mother Abbess and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for this movie, was dubbed by Margery McKay after she struggled to sing Climb Ev'ry Mountain. Anna Lee, who played Sister Margaretta, was dubbed by Marie Greene. Christopher Plummer was dubbed by Bill Lee, who also did the singing voice for Yogi Bear. Plummer, who has performed in stage musicals, did have his singing recorded but decided it was not good enough.

There were once rumors that some or all of the children's voices were dubbed.^{[citation needed]} Director Robert Wise insists that none of their voices were dubbed, though at times other children's voices were added to theirs for a stronger effect; the extra singers included Randy Perkins, Diane Burt, Darlene Farnon (a.k.a. Darlene Carr) and Sue McBain. Additionally, Farnon, sister of Charmian Carr, who played Liesl, sang the high note for Duane Chase, who played Kurt, in the song, So Long, Farewell, because it was well beyond his vocal range.

Trivia from the Movie:

• Many people believe "Edelweiss" to be a traditional Austrian song, or even the national anthem.[2]. In fact the song was written for the musical and is little known in Austria. The song was the last that Oscar Hammerstein II wrote.
• The Ländler dance that Maria and the Captain shared was not performed the traditional way it is done in Austria.

• "I Have Confidence" is a song that Rodgers wrote as a musical bridge, needed in the movie to get Maria from the convent to the von Trapp manor (as he explained). During that segment, at one point Julie Andrews passes under an archway. As pointed out in one of the DVD's extras, the real Maria von Trapp, one of her daughters, and one of her daughters (Maria's granddaughter) can be seen starting to cross the road at that point. The von Trapps arrived on set that day and director Wise offered them this walk-on role. It has also been reported that Andrews tripped at one point during the filming, a moment the editors left in because it seemed to fit the character.
• The order of several of the songs is markedly different between the stage play and the film, thanks to the screenwriting of Ernest Lehman. One example is that in the play, "My Favorite Things" is sung at the convent, whereas in the movie it is sung to the children. A couple of the songs were altered. "How Can Love Survive?" (which did not fit the flow of the movie very well) was reduced to an instrumental, one of several waltz numbers played at the party occurring just before intermission. The title song's four-line prelude ("My day in the hills has come to an end, I know..."), sung by Mary Martin in the stage play, is reduced to an instrumental hint during the overture and dramatic zoom-in shot to Julie Andrews on the mountaintop at the start of the movie.
• Ironically, the movie featured a rare onscreen performance by Marni Nixon, who plays Sister Sophia and is well known to have dubbed the singing voices for many famous movie stars such as Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. In fact, the producers weren't sure how Julie Andrews would react to her after Marni dubbed Hepburn in a role made famous by Andrews; however, when Andrews first met Nixon, she exclaimed, "Marni, I'm a fan of you!" and the producers were relieved.
• Despite the enormous popularity of the movie, which at the time became the largest grossing picture of all time, noted film critic Pauline Kael blasted the film in a review in which she called the movie "The Sound Of Money." This review allegedly led to Kael's dismissal from McCall's magazine.
• The Sound of Music became the highest grossing film of all time in December 1965, when it beat Gone With the Wind by slightly less than one million dollars. The Sound of Music remained the highest grossing film of all time, until 1970 when Gone With the Wind was re-released and it became #1 again. After that, several films (The Godfather, Jaws, etc) have pushed The Sound of Music further down on the list.
• In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
• According to boxofficemojo, the film ranks third in both all-time number of tickets sold (142,415,400) and in gross adjusted for inflation ($911,458,400) in North America (behind Gone with the Wind and Star Wars) Combine this with its success around the world in sales of tickets, videocassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs and its frequent airings on television, it is called "the most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio" by Amazon.uk
• The film was released in several foreign countries. In Germany it was re-titled Meine Lieder, Meine Träume (My Songs, My Dreams); France -- La mélodie du bonheur (The Melody of Happiness); Portugal -- Música no Coração (Music in the Heart); Brazil -- A Noviça Rebelde (The Rebel Novice); Italy -- Tutti insieme Appassionatamente (All Together with Passion); Netherlands -- De mooiste muziek (The Most Beautiful Music); Spain -- Sonrisas y Lágrimas (Smiles and Tears); Greece -- E meloudia tees Efti-hias (The Melody of Happiness); Israel -- Tze-leh ha-musica (The Sound of Music); Saudi Arabia -- Sauth el musika (The Sound of Music); Mexico -- La Novicia Rebelde (The Rebel Novice); Iran -- Ashkha va labkhandha (Tears and Smiles); Yugoslavia -- Moje pesme, moji snovi (My Songs, My Dreams)
• Controversy surrounded the film's release in Germany. According to a 2000 documentary: "...the film's Nazi overtones brought about the unauthorized cutting of the third act." The third act, with its initial images of post-Anschluss Austria, begins directly after Maria's wedding to the Baron. Eventually, the third act was restored to the German release, but audience attendance did not improve.
• According to the British tabloid The Sun, the movie was selected by BBC executives as one to be broadcast after a nuclear strike, to improve the morale of survivors. The BBC did not confirm or deny the story, saying "This is a security issue so we cannot comment" ^[1]. However, this would not be broadcast on television, due to both the electromagnetic pulse and blast knocking down power lines, though radio broadcasts could be possible.
• Legend has it that South Koreans were even more taken by the movie. A theatre owner in South Korea, wanting to show the movie more times per day to take the money of more customers, allegedly cut out the musical pieces ^[2].
• While the von Trapp family hiked over the Alps to Switzerland in the movie, in reality they walked to the local train station and boarded the next train to Italy. From Italy, they fled to London and ultimately the U.S. ^[3] Salzburg is in fact only a few miles away from the Austrian-German border, and is much too far from either the Swiss or Italian borders for a family to escape by walking. Had the von Trapps hiked over the mountains, they would have ended up in Germany, near Hitler's mountain retreat.
• Ironically, the US-movie is virtually unknown in Germany and Austria. This can be mainly attributed to the former German-made movie "Die Trapp-Familie" (1956) and its sequel "Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika" (1958) but also to the dark period of Austrian history which is cursory displayed in the later US-movie as well as in the former Austro-German films, which starred popular German and Austrian actors. According to the German Wikipedia entry for the movie, the real baroness von Trapp says of the first film that 'not a word in it is true, but it is delightful'.
• All of the children who played the Von Trapp children in the film are actually older than their characters.
• The soundtrack album was included in the stockpile of records held in 20 underground radio stations of Great Britain's Wartime Broadcasting Service, designed to provide public information and morale-boosting broadcasts for 100 days after a nuclear attack^[4].
• In her autobiography, Charmaine Carr mentions that during filming the gazebo scene, her shoes were too slippery to dance in. As a result, she crashed through the glass side of the gazebo during the dance. Luckily, the only injury was a twisted ankle. She still wanted to do the scene, though, and make-up was applied to the wrap on her ankle and a few camera angles changed so that the injury wouldn't show.
• Christopher Plummer likened working with Julie Andrews to "being hit over the head with a Valentine's Day card every day!" and reportedly didn't like working on the movie. Still, he and Andrews are good friends to this day.
• The Cult adult humour comic Viz had a pastiche of the film poster on the front cover of issue 163, with Millie Tant as Maria.

And some quick information on the Volksoper:

The Vienna Volksoper (Volksoper Wien or Vienna People's Opera) is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It gives about three hundred performances of twenty-five productions each season which runs from September to June. The theatre seats 1,473 and 102 standees.

The opera house was built in 1898 as the Kaiser-Jubiläums-Stadttheater (Kaiser's Jubilee Civic Theatre), originally producing only plays, but in 1903, operas and operettas became part of the program. The Volksoper is Vienna’s largest venue for operas, operettas, musicals and dance theater.

The first Viennese performances of Tosca and Salome were given at the Volksoper in 1907 and 1910 respectively. World famous singers such as Maria Jeritza and Richard Tauber appeared there; the conductor Alexander Zemlinsky became the first kapellmeister in 1906. In the years up to and through the First World War the Volksoper attained a position as Vienna's second prestige opera house but, after 1929, it focused its repertoire on light opera. After the Second World War, the Volksoper Wien became the alternative venue to the devastated Wiener Staatsoper. In 1955 the Volksoper returned to its former role of presenting opera, operetta, and musicals.

Chacteristic of its presentations is the 2006-2007 season during which seven operettas will be staged. These include such favorites as Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow and The Count of Luxemburg and Johann Strauss II's The Gypsy Baron and Die Fledermaus plus two popular musicals, La Cage aux Folles and The Sound of Music and dance programs.

In September 2003, Rudolf Berger - former opera director at the Strasbourg Opera - became the company’s director, while Marc Piollet became musical director.

And I guess in closing I'll leave you all with the German lyrics to Edelweiß:

Edelweiß, Edelweiß,du grüßt mich jeden morgen,
Sehe ich dich, freue ich mich, und vergeß meine Sorgen.
Schmücke das Heimatland, schön und weiß, blühest wie die Sterne.
Edelweiß, Edelweiß, ach, ich hab dich so gerne.

Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me,
Small and white, clean and bright, you look happy to meet me.
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow, bloom and grow forever.
Edelweiss, Edelweiss, bless my homeland forever.

Liebe,
Amanda