Nothing is so classic in people’s minds as the sound of music both for the stage production and the film. So I like many was excited when I heard there would be a live musical done of this. I however proceeded to cringe some when I heard Carrie Underwood would be playing Maria. Do not get me wrong I enjoy her music in her genre, but I just could not picture her as Maria. I was a little happier with some of the other casting, Stephen Moyer as Captain Von Trapp, Christian Borle as Max and Audra McDonald as Mother Abbess all good choices. So why did that pick Carrie Underwood for Maria? She is just not a Broadway singer her voice has far too much twang to it. Still I thought okay, breath I will give it a try and see if I like it.
Well that was a mistake. In the big opening song for Maria, The hills are alive with the sound of music! It should have been a triumph and set the tone for all of it. Well the song did set the tone alright, lackluster. To me her delivery was just wooden and not as big of an impact as it should have been. The twang in her voice is indeed mostly gone, so that helps but overall it was just flat as were all her other songs. Now let us touch on the part that made me flinch from the get go the acting. I am going to be harsh here but in my opinion Carrie Underwood cannot act her way out of a paper bag. If you are going to take on a role that Julie Andrews did you really need to bring you’re a game and I am not sure she brought any game at all.
Again I enjoyed the rest of the cast for the most part in this. At times Moyer seemed a little to wooden but for the most part I liked his portrayal of the stiff proper Austrian Von Trapp. The moment when he sang with his children and hugged them was perhaps my favorite of the whole piece. Borle plays the perfect Max and you can really tell he has put in his time and chops on the Broadway stage because he delivered it just like you would expect to see in a stage production.
So my overall thought was if you did not see it you weren’t missing anything really. It was a bit mediocre and honestly I have seen better productions on High School stages.
