The Sound of Music - Northern Arts Review
Opera North at Leeds Grand Opera House
The Sound of Music - Northern Arts Review
In the ancient bygone days of the 1980s, watching a movie at home was dark magic. You were either subject to the whims of the terrestrial TV programming schedule, or, if you were lucky, your parents clubbed in with the neighbours to buy a newfangled device called a VCR. Then you had the wild and heady luxury of watching one of the five tapes you owned. I was fortunate enough to be in the latter camp, and every fourth week of the month, it was my family’s turn with the VCR. Inevitably, we all clamoured to watch our favourite movies (as long as they were one of the five tapes we owned). My mum’s favourite movie was The Sound of Music. So, in a nearly monthly ritual, we would watch Sister Maria twirl on the Austrian Alps, sitting under blankets that we pulled around our faces like habits. Eventually, when I was a teenager, the tape snapped from overuse and, from that moment, I have probably only seen the film a handful of times. I’ve never stopped loving Maria and the von Trapp family children, but the story has always been so ingrained in my memory that I only need to think about it, and I am watching it frame by frame. So, when Opera North announced its summertime production of The Sound of Music, I already had my guitar packed and began cutting my favourite curtains into lederhosen.
As far as I can find, The Sound of Music is new material for Opera North, though musicals certainly aren’t new territory, with previous seasons offering favourite classics such as Sweeney Todd and My Fair Lady. This production is essentially a transfer of Nikolai Foster’s Christmas production for Leicester Curve, arriving with most of its creative team intact: Michael Taylor’s set and costumes, Mark Henderson’s lighting and Ebony Molina’s choreography, now conducted by Oliver Rundell with the Chorus and Orchestra of Opera North themselves.
Based on Maria von Trapp’s memoir, by way of a German film adaptation, The Sound of Music is the story of Maria, a postulant too vibrant and restless for convent life. Under the guidance of the older nuns in her order, she is packed off to govern the seven children of a widowed Austrian naval captain who runs his household like one of his ships. As Maria attempts to follow God’s will—that she help the children learn to love the woman everyone believes will become their new mother—music creeps back into a home that had shut it out. Refusing the rigidity of Captain von Trapp, the children learn through lessons and games as a slow, yearning affection develops between Maria and the Captain. But Austria is a precarious place to be as the Nazi annexation of the country interrupts their love story and the threat of stormtroopers forces the family to make some difficult decisions.
To see my full review, please visit Northern Arts Review
See you in the shadows my loves,
Sean x
